war of the wolves
by hersheysmusicandtwilight
Summary: Okay,l so basically the Children of the moon find out about the OTHER werewolves, and they are not happy. AND Embry finds out who his father is. Its a lot better than this summary, I swear.
1. Chapter 1

Prologue

"Oh!" Aro's eyes widened in surprise and carefully concealed fury. "Well! That is definitely…suprising." He let go of his brother's hand.

"Suprising?" Caius spat. "Its terrible! Pathetic! We specifically chose thirteen humans for their talents, changed them, trained them, and they can't even kidnap a few human girls? Can't even save themselves from one measly pack-"

"Yes," Aro said gravely, seemingly unaware of his interruption. "It is certainly a waste."

"Ha!" Caius snorted. "Vampires as incompetent as that could never be a waste."

"Oh, but they were, my dear brother." Aro assured him. "You seem to be looking at this from the wrong angle. It isn't that our team of newborns was bad. Its that the wolves and Cullens were _good._" He sighed as shook his head good-naturedly, as if chastising himself for making a mistake on a math problem. "It appears that we underestimated them."

"I could always pay them a visit." Jane offered slyly, her ruby orbs alive with anticipation.

"Ah, no, Janey." Aro waggled a finger. "Bella, remember? No, we will only be able to beat them through shear strength and numbers, I see that now. Vampire powers are useless. Perhaps put them against…themselves." He glanced at his brother, awaiting his reaction.

It took a second for Caius to understand his brother's words. But when he did, his opinion on the matter was clear. "No." He said flatly. "I will not. I cannot stand to associate with those…barbarians." His nose wrinkled in disgust. "Are there even any left?"

"A few." Aro said off handedly. "And I'm sure they'd be willing to lend a hand in exchange for protection against others of our kind."

"I won't-"

"You won't have to!" Aro cut in. "We'll send them straight to Forks. In a few years, of course, when this last little…escapade has smoothed over. Little Janey won't mind tracking them down, will she, darling?"

"Of course not!" Jane looked horrified at the very thought of such a thing.

"They'll be next to impossible to find." Caisus grumbled.

"Next to being the key phrase here." Aro, as usual, was not to be discouraged.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's note: hey Everyones! This is the third book in a series, the first two are Waking Up and Angels and vampires and you can find them on my profile so READ THEM and reveiw!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OR you could just skip them and read this one, because I guess its not strictly nesicarry. Whichever. **

**TO PEOPLE WHO REVEIW: YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY! You are wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. Even if you wrote that you hated it. You get a lifetime supply of COOOOOOKIES!**

**TO PEOPLE WHO DONT REVEIE: You break my heart. See look, there's a tear.**

Cathryn's POV

House Day.

That was what I was calling it. A very fitting name, in my opinion.

The reason being that it revolved around _houses._

We would start said lovely day by driving up to Canada with Nessie to have a look at her new house. The Cullens had finally decided that they'd been in Forks too long and had moved roughly two hours away-they couldn't move too far because of Jacob-to Canada. Renessmee had yet to see her new home on account of going to college at Washington State with me. But this Saturday, a week before school let out for Christmas, she'd get to see it. And I was the lucky one getting to see it with her.

Not.

It wasn't necessarily as if I didn't want to see it with her. I just didn't want to see it with her when I had _other things to do. _I mean, college was no joke. You can't just breeze right by it like you do high school. I had to actually pay attention. And do my homework and study in places other than the previous class. And, as it turns out, homework and studying take up a lot of free time.

And I had to dance. I was assistant teaching classes on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays at the ballet school in Seattle, so those days, from three to seven, were taken up. And, okay, so it wasn't so bad. It turned out, I worked quite brilliantly with kids. Claire, of course, wasn't nearly as surprised as I had been coming to terms with this little piece of information. Apparently, back in the day when she was too young to stay at home by herself, I'd been brilliant.

She was eleven now. They grow up so fast. Sniff, sniff.

Anyways, I loved the kid thing so much that I had decided to go for a degree in Education. I was going to become an art teacher. And a dance instructor in the afternoons and summers. My three favorite things, dancing and art and kids, all rolled up together.

Well, three of my four favorite things. My number one favorite thing-or person-fit into an entirely different category. Embry's Cathryn time had gotten severely diminished since I'd headed off to college. So severely, in fact, that I had to sneak out of my sorority at night, after curfew, to see him at all.

So, you see, I was rather crushed for time during the week, and I really do not see how it was such a huge deal for me to want to kick it on the weekends. Especially since it was the last weekend I had before the holidays, and I hadn't even started my Christmas shopping list.

But I guess it was.

Visiting the Cullens wasn't even the only thing I had to do! That afternoon I would have to go straight from Canada to La Push. Embry had saved up enough for a house, and was getting it built. And I, being his imprint, was going to have to live in said house for the foreseeable future once we got married. So Embry had invited me over to the place while it was still a work in progress to make sure he wasn't letting the construction workers create something monstrous.

And then, after that, I would arrive, weary and sore, to my sorority, Kappa Kappa Gamma, and be greeted by the new sorority member. I can understand how you would not see the huge deal in this. I mean, sorority houses usually housed like fifty girls, right? If you don't like one, it should be fairly easy to stay away from them.

Ha! I wish.

I was only in my first semester in college, my first semester at the house, and I'd made more enemies than I could count. Turns out, nonstop sarcasm, smart remarks, thoughtlessness, irresponsibility and constant daydreaming can get under the skin of some people.

Who ever would have guessed?

Fortunately I had Nessie, Keilly, and Leslie on my side and, with their help, had made enough friends to just outshine the enemies. People who saw the spunky, loyal, and brave side of me. After all, not all people were humorless bores.

Just most of them.

"This feels so weird," Nessie murmured, stepping over the threshold and into her new home. Or rather, her families new home. Nessie wasn't actually going to do much living in it, seeing as she was in college now and once she and Jacob got hitched she'd be living with him in Lap Push.

Nessie didn't actually know about that last part thought. Jakey was taking his sweet time.

"I like it!" I lied.

Nessie pressed her hand to my forhead, as if she were feeling for a fever. I felt my eyes haze out. I saw the old Cullen entrance in my head, light colors and glass back and all.

This one was different.

Oh, sure, there were similar aspects. They were both was out in the woods, where no human would ever end up. Where they had their privacy. They were both big, both nice, both expensive.

But that, as far as similarities, was where it ended.

This place was long, spacious on the outside. Only two stories high, but the foundation took up so much space that it made up for it. And this one wasn't white. On the outside or the inside. It was oak, woodsy, through and through. Like a lodge in Colorado or something. And this one wasn't spacey. The rooms were smaller, and the house itself was like a maze, al hallways and doors. The colors were dark, the few things that weren't constructed of some sort of wood were bold, heavy colors like green and read and purple.

And when I said I liked it, t wasn't technically a lie. I did like it. Loved it, even. That afternoon I fully planned to talk whoever was making Embry and My house into making our house as much like it as possible. It just didn't feel Cullen-y to me. This was not the home of a coven of vampires.

The others, however, seemed to disagree.

"Nessie, Cat!" Esme cried, smiling hugely and taking us both into tight hugs in her cold hard arms. "We've missed you!"

Once I'd gotten my breath back, I looked over her shoulder at Bella and Edward. Both of whom had their eyes fixed on their daughter. Had they been capable of it, I'm sure they would have cried.

Nessie did get misty-eyed. "Momma!" She whispered, stepping away from Esme and into two more sets of ready arms. Her parents smiled hugely and kissed the top of her head-well, Edward did. Bella actually kissed her jaw on account of Nessie being like five inches taller than her now. She took after her father, height wise-and pressed her hands to their faces, eager to give out images of the past couple of months.

Alice rolled her eyes at me. "Parents." She said scornfully.

I laughed and walked eagerly to her and Jasper. I'd missed them the most.

"How've you guys been?" I asked.

"Eh." Alice shrugged. "Bored. I never thought I'd say this, but I actually miss the werewolves!"

"More the imprints, I think." Jasper said.

"True." Alice amended. "I can only give Rosalie so many make oers. Bella, of course, won't let me. I miss my girls!" She wiped away a fake-tear.

"I'm sure you'll live." I told her.

"I guess." Alice sighed doubtfully.

She looked so sad, so small there, leaning against Jasper as if he were the only thing holding her up. Her little shoulders slumped as if she were carrying on them the world. I almost felt sorry for her.

Almost. Thankfully, I caught the wink Jasper sent me before it was too late.

"Oh, no, Alice!" I cried, dancing away from her, towards Emmett. "You are not giving me a make over. You can't."

"Oh, Please, Kitty?" Alice pleaded, throwing caution to the wind. "I've been so lone;ly here with only guys, and mommies to keep me company-"

Rosalie cleared her throat pointedly.

"Oh, all right, and a mommy wannabe, but you get my point. I need girl time. _Desperately."_ She took my shoulders and gave them a little shake, proving her point.

I wasn't swayed. I swear. Not even a little bit. I fully intended to go outside with Rosalie to check out their cars for the rest of the morning. I didn't care a lick if Alice got mad at me. Or was scarred for the rest of her existence, or whatever. She was like I spoiled child, I swear. Got everything she wanted.

But when Ness came up behind me and put her hand on my back, sending images of little dollar signs dancing through my head, well….

I started seeing things Alice's way.

Chapter 2

Embry's POV

When Cathryn pulled up to the almost-but-not-quite-house, I could tell right away that something was up. Not in her mind. But physically. She looked different.

She opened the door. "Hey, Cat." I greeted her. "Did you…get your hair dyed or something?"

Cathryn looked horrified. "No!" She squeaked, her voice an octive too high. "I DID NOT get my hair dyed?" She ducked back into her car and turned down the dashboard window, checking her reflection carefully. "Does it look that bad?"

"No!" I said quickly, backtracking. "Er…what DID you do?"

"Not _me._" Cathryn muttered scornfully, getting back out of the car. "Alice. Look what she did to my hair!"

She turned around, exposing the mountain of pinned up auburn ringlets sitting on her head. It looked good. It reminded me of her hair the day Rachel and Paul tied the knot.

"Oh." I said sarcastically. "Yeah. Awful."

"It is!" Cathryn insisted, walking around me and sticking out her hand to Mr. Marshal, the architect. "Hiya. Lady of the house, here."

I ducked my head to hide a satisfied grin. I loved the way she said that, sure but casual at the same time, like we were already engaged. The same way I felt. A few months ago she _never _would have said that.

"Hey." Mr. Marshal replied, taking her small hand in his large-compared to hers, not mine-one and shaking, his brow furrowed in confusion. I could understand his bewilderment. She looked so _young._

Even younger than she actually was. Because it turned out that imprints did not age. Us wolves felt like pretty big idiots when we discovered this, seeing as we had had centuries and centuries to notice and never had. We'd just assumed that our imprints were still aging, so we stopped phasing so that we could grow old with them. And we started aging, so did our imprints. In our defense, however, this was the first time we had ever had a coven of vampires breathing down one of the imprint's neck. They and Jacob had freaked out rather considerably when Nessie stopped aging sooner than intended. A sixteen rather than eighteen. So they did some sniffing around, and discovered that Kim was around the same age, physically. Though she was supposed to be twenty-six, she had the body of a mid-teen. Same with Emily. And Rachel.

It took the lot of us awhile before we got it. Before we understood that imprints were so thoroughly, so completely connected to their wolf that they stopped aging at the exact same age their wolf had.

Which explained why Emily's tummy had showed no signs of stretch marks when she had Nate, no wrinkles on her face from sleepless nights, no laugh lines. She wouldn't have had many, she was only thirty after all, but those ten or so extra years were obviously not there even from a human's perspective.

Cathryn was thrilled when I told her. Every woman's dream, to never get old. At least, that's how the imprints were looking at it. Us wolves, however, were still a little skeptical. But we didn't think about it too much. When it came to our imprints, everything freaked us out. Even the good stuff.

Anyways. It made sense for Mr. Marshal to be unsettled. It wasn't every day you saw a girl that looked sixteen and a guy that looked twenty-five getting ready to buy a house together.

He handled it well though, I thought.

"Embry said you were here to observe, mostly. You know, get the feel of the place. Make sure-"

"That you weren't screwing it up?" Cathryn interrupted.

Mr. Marshal blinked, affronted. I chuckled to myself. Though she had had this effect on people more times than I could count, it never got old. "Well-not exactly-I wouldn't-" He stammered.

"Yeah." Cathryn patted him briskly on the shoulder. "Whatevs."

She walked past him and up the drive way to the house. Obviously, it was still a work in progress. They had the bottom part, the foundation, completely done, as well as the front and back porch. Other than that, though, it was all just a bunch of thick, wooden beams. The building's skeleton, I guess you could call it. It wasn't much, and I was fully prepared for Cathryn to be brutal.

But I was wrong. She surprised me. As per usual.

"Eeeeeep!" She squealed, turning and running back to me, jumping into my arms. I caught her in midair, laughing. "I love it!" She whispered in my ear. "Or at least," She pulled back and looked from me to Mr. Marshall curiously. "I think I love it. Its not really clear yet…."

"Yeah." I snorted and swung her around onto my back, where she promptly climbed onto my shoulders. "That's kind of why you're here."

"See, Mr. Call and I were thinking it'd be stone and brick on the outside, and oak on the inside." Mr. Marshall started to explain.

"Oak floors or oak walls?" Cathryn interrupted.

"We have no idea." I told her. "He won't be living here and I don't care. So…"

"Hmmm." Cat rested her elbows on top of my head. " Think that it should have, like, oak outlines. Like the corners and the top and bottom of the walls, and any structures…you know what I'm talking about, Mr. M?"

Mr Marshal tilted his head up to look at her better. "Oak paneling?"

"Yeah!" I could feel her nod her head enthusiastically.

"So what about the walls and floors?" I wondered.

"Painted walls…dark colors? Like a sort of cranberry red…you know. Warm. Cause its always so dark and cold here. Are you okay with that, Em?"

"Sure, sure." I borrowed Jacob's saying.

"And then hardwood floors? But not oak. Something else."

"All right." Mr. Marshal jotted all this down before leading us up the steps and into the house. As I stepped over the threshold, Cathryn grabbed hold of one of the beams and let me walk out from under her, so that she was just dangling there. She swung around experimentally, kicking her feet.

"I," She declared, "Like this."

I smiled huge. "Good."

"Hey." She said, swinging her legs up and over so that she was sitting on top of the beam as opposed to hanging from it. My heart irrationally skipped a beat. The house was only going to be one floor with a basement, so the beam wasn't high, but that didn't make it any easier for me to let her do that without running around under her with a net. "What's that?" She pointed to a structure to our left.

"That's going to be the kitchen countertop." Mr. Marshal sounded proud. "You know those that have chair along one side so you can use it as a table, and a washing machine or an oven on the other?"

"Yeah."

"That. Only Its going to have beams on either side, going to the ceiling and then over until they meet. It'll create a little window as well as a sort of wall separating the kitchen from the living room."

"Okay." Cat said cheerfully. "Hey, can the kitchen floors be tile instead of hardwood like everything else?"

"Sure." I answered for him.

We walked through the rest of the house, Mr. Marshal explaining and Cat or I occasionally commenting on what we wanted the color or flooring to be. Well, Mr. Marshal and I walked. Cathryn balanced precariously on beams, crawling and walking and swinging on them like a jungle gym. She was seriously beginning to stress me out.

Which was why, as soon as Cathryn had left, off to her sorority where she'd meet yet another sister, I turned to Mr. Marshal and made absolutely clear that if he put a skylight or dorm windows or a balcony or anything else Cat could ever use to get on the roof, he was fired. I was not spending the rest of our too-long-but-not-nearly-long-enough existences together freaking out about Cathryn falling off something and killing herself.

Chapter 3

Cathryn's POV

"Hello?" I flipped open my cell. "Mom?"

"Hey, sweetie. Have you found out about your new sorority sister yet?" Her voice bubbled over in excitement.

I took my time answering, stopping at a red light-obeying the traffic laws for once-and switching radio stations a few times. "No. The others know by now, but I was…busy."

__

Busy.

But it wasn't like I could tell them that. So our arguments about him usually ended up going stalemate. And staying that way.

"Well get there!" Mom said, either not noticing or ignoring my resentful tone. "You'll be so surprised…well, just get there. And call me when you find out!"

"Sure. Love you."

"Love you too!"

I hung up and entered the campus, slowing Jewel to a smooth crawl. Now that I knew my parents knew…. Well, obviously I'd changed a lot lately, and there were too many aspects of my life and personality that they weren't aware of for them to be able to accurately judge what I would and would not like.

Unfortunately though, I couldn't dawdle forever. And my sisters were only too happy for me to shorten the process for me even further.

"KIT-KAT!" Becca screamed, throwing open the door before I had even parked.

"Hey, Bex."I said unenthusiastically once out of the car.

I know that I give the impression of not liking Becca. That is not the case. I do. Really. Its just that she got here on a cheerleading scholarship. And she has the pep-filled personality to go with it. And I find that kind of…tiring. So I have to take her in small doses. When I'm well rested. And in a good mood.

And right now was none of the above.

"Omigod your going to FREAK when you find out who it is! Seriously. Your mom recommended her. You'll be so exited. Cat-"

And that was about where I tuned out. Instead of listening, I took deep breaths through my nose and focused on the smell of the rain I had come to love. Or tolerate, at least. I turned the knob to our front door and stepped inside, wondering ildly-

"Ah!" I screamed, jumping back. "You!"

I felt my lip curl angrily at the word. Can you believe, that after all this time, my parents still haven't accepted Embry? Even though they've known about us dating for a year now? And its obvious he loves me? They were so against it that I actually had to lie about it sometimes when I went to see him. Apparently I was too young to be seeing somebody seriously and should take my time and fall in love with just the right guy and all that crap. What they didn't realize was that all their parently wisdom went out the window anyway where Embry was concerned, because he wasn't even human. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's note: Heeeeeey everybody! THANK YOU if you reveiwed. YOU ARE AWESOME. Do it again pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze? **

**oh and please excuse that last paragraph. I don't know what happened. Apparantly there was a malfunction. The last thing you were supposed to have read is "Gah! You!" **

**okay thats all.**

I poked her. Like she was a marage or something.

"Sup." Mikki greeted me with about as much pleasure as Leslie would greet a giant slug.

Oh. Wait. You people don't know who Mikki is. Sit tight. I will explain.

See, Mikki was my best friend back in Florida. Before my mom started seeing Bob, and I moved to La Push and started dating a literal dog and being kidnapped by vampires and such. We were totally inseparable. We were, like, those best friends you always see in movies and read about in books. The ones who live next door and spend the night with each other every weekend and sometimes on school nights. We got into trouble together, got out of trouble together. She helped me cram for tests in subjects I'd been sleeping through, and when her boyfriend dumped her I'd made her the banana split in which she cried into. I'd known everything about her. She was organized and together and athletic and smart. She had this psycho need to be in control, when something happened that she didn't expect, she totally freaked out. She was fierce and mean and bad ass in such extremes that I was the _nice _one.

But then I moved. And Mikki had been responsible Mikki. She'd called. And texted. And wrote. And I tried to call and text and write back. You know, at first. But it was so _tiring. _Telling her about things that she had no clue about, hearing about things that no longer concerned me. It got boring. So I stopped.

Does that sound cold to you? Dumping you bestest everest friend after a month apart?

Yeah. I know it does.

Looking at her now, I could see that she had changed a lot in the past five years. She was taller, for one thing. Probably six foot. Five ten, at least. She was skinny, even skinnier than me, all angles and lines. Hardly any curves. Her dark, chocolate colored skin was still beautiful, but now it was in a more adult way. Her black almond shaped eyes had narrowed into catlike slits, her lips permanently twisted into a scowl. And her kinky hair that once I'd been so jealous of and grown out and been braided into dreadlocks. With beads.

Dreadlocks, okay? Like a guy. From like Jamaica or somewhere else equally tropical. The look wouldn't have been hot back in Florida, and in rainy and boring Washington State it was downright hideous.

So really, I can't be held responsible for what came out of my mouth next. I just couldn't wrap my head around anything else.

"Your hair!" I blurted. "What did you do to it? Lose a bet?"

Becca looked vaguely amused. She has come a long way since we met in the beginning of the semester. Back then, my saying something like that would have horrified her. "Cat, be niceness!" she chastised.

Mikki, however, was not quite so understanding. "At least I'm not wearing five pounds of make up." She said evenly, slowly. My pulse quickened. At first, I didn't know why. But then I remembered: Mikki only talked like that when she was mad. Like, really mad. Furious. Livid. "And _my _hair is original."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I demanded. Despite the fact that agreed with her on both counts, I liked Alice. And nobody bags on my friends.

"Just that you've obviously changed." She said coolly. "You never used to care what other people thought. About the approval of _cheerleaders._" She sneered at Becca. "Flipping idiots, right? Or are you one of them now?"

Flipping idiots. What we used to call them. Only since meeting Leslie my opinion on cheerleaders has softened somewhat. Even if girls like Becca aren't really helping of the cause.

Speaking of Becca, she had sort of slinked back, and was now looking at me with a wide eyed expression of shock. I could totally read what she was telepathically trying to get across. And I was thinking the exact same thing:

__

I

was ever friends with _her?_

"I'm afraid of her, guys." Keilly whispered, giggling slightly at the confession. "Like, genuinely scared."

It was the best time of day for me. Or rather, night. See, whenever we aren't busy sneaking out of the house to meet our werewolf boyfriends, or after we've done it, Leslie and Keilly and Nessie and me have a little chat. Usually about people we hate or things our sisters have done that day to annoy us. Nobody hears us, even though we share a room with a couple others. We have long since pushed our beds together so it looks like we are all sharing one big one and put our little dressers and bathroom bags at the foot of them instead of the right side, like everybody else. Our other sisters thought we were insane. After all, we lived together. Wasn't this taking it a little far?

Our answers: No. No, it was not.

Especially since this little tragedy happened.

Mikki had, in the course of one afternoon, managed to conivince me that the best friend I'd known and loved was dead. And this new, poor substitute did not belong in a sorority. She belonged in military school. Or juvi.

Oh, wait. We were eighteen now. Never mind then. She belonged in jail.

My phone vibrated under my pillow. I flipped it open. It was a text from Embry.

****

We can always kill her if u want. Wait till she's n the woods and make it look like a bear or something.

I snorted. "Look at this." I showed them the message.

Ness giggled and wrapped her arms around our necks, the only way to touch all of us at once. She showed us a gravestone with Mikki's name on it. And brightly colored balloons in the background.

"And you know what's sad?" Leslie asked me. "I don't think she's kidding."

I snorted. "Embry isn't either."

"No, what's really sad is how tempting the offer is." Keilly said sadly.

"I know! She's evil!" I texted this to Embry.

And she was. Not only was she openly rude and obnoxious-that was fine, actually, seeing as I was all that-but she was truly mean. She insulted us all in sly, backhanded ways, somehow knowing what would get under our skin the most. Like hinting that I had turned into a wannabee prep. Or that Keilly needed to lose weight. Or that Nessie was a total freak.

Actually, that last one was true. But Ness was surprisingly sensitive about that kind of thing.

"Maybe she sold her soul to the devil." I suggested.

"In exchange for what?" Leslie asked. "Hideous hair? The body of an anorexic?"

"Drugs." Keilly said solemnly.

We were silent for a moment, contemplating. It was actually a pretty believable assumption. Bloodshot eyes, distancing herself from people she was once close to…. What would that mean? Because when Keilly said drugs, she didn't mean the kid stuff. She was talking about, like, heroin. And if she was on the stuff, it was my duty as her-former-best friend to get her the hell off it.

But it really wasn't a job I felt like doing. I had enough on my plate as it was.

Leslie took my phone and flipped it open again so the light radiated from the screen. She held it under her neck like it was a flashlight and we were telling scary stories. "She's going to overdose us in our sleep!" She hissed ominously.

That did it. We died laughing.

Well, Nessie and Leslie and I did. Keilly squirmed. "Les, don't say that!" She shrieked. "I'm freaked out as it is!"

"Gooooiiiiys!" Emily groaned from across the room. "Shuddit!"

She was not my favorite sister in the house.

But we quieted down anyway, because we were just that nice. I huddled up next to Keilly and wrapped my arms around her. "Don't worry, baby." I said in as macho a voice as I could muster when whispering. "I'll protect you."

"You think you're kidding." Keilly told me, burying her face in my hair.

"Seriously." I assured her in my regular voice. "Mikki is harmless!"

And she was. She was all smack and no wack. Always had been.

But then that wouldn't have been the only thing about her that had changed...

Embry's POV

"I'm thinking maybe they should drop out." Collin said.

I raised my eyebrows. He wasn't kidding. And if _Collin _wanted his soul mate to not get the right education, you knew something was wrong.

And it was.

I hadn't been too worried when Cat had texted me the day before, going on and on about this evil new sorority sister that she'd used to know. Her wild accusations of her being evil and deadly and cruel and bitchy meant very little to me. Which was, I know, not the best way to think of things. I was an imprinted werewolf, wasn't I? Supposed to overreact at even the slightest hint of her pain?

But she had been texting, for crying out loud! You can't read somebody's tone from a text. Especially not Cat's. She said things like that about Keilly sometimes. For all I knew, they were really best friends. And even if they weren't, Cathryn overreacted about things like that. Surprisingly, she did like most people. Because of all the harshness in her own personality, she was very understanding of other people's. But when she did dislike some one, it was like they were the devil. She didn't just dislike them. She hated them. Deeply and passionately and irreversibly.

So I didn't really think too much on it.

But then I had patrol. And on patrol, Collin's and Seth's and Jacob's thoughts were all on this mysterious Mikki. And theirs, unlike mine, were not indulgent, not amused. Because when _their _imprints freaked out like that about some one, they meant it. And they had been freaking out. More than Cat, even. They had called them. Keilly had even been in tears.

That had gotten to all of us the most. Especially, of course, Seth. His baby girl was upset, and there would be hell to pay.

Hadn't pegged Seth as the angry, overprotective type? Yeah. Me neither, I was inside his head. That was just what our imprints did to us.

Mikki had apparently called Keilly fat. And Keilly was scarred for life. Which was stupid, really, because she wasn't.

We hadn't done anything about it that day, because it was like three o'clock in the morning and they'd be asleep anyways. But we were here today. Ready to check her out for ourselves. And decide what needed to be done.

And that wasn't take them out of college. Especially not in Jacob's eyes.

"Sure, sure," He said lazily in response to Collin's suggestion. "I'll just call her genius family and let them know that Nessie won't even have a deploma. That'll go over well."

"I still say we strangle her." Seth said. I grinned. I was leaning towards that one as well at this point.

We started towards the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority house. No need to be secretive. Not this time. It was Sunday afternoon, a weekend and well before curfew. A curfew all four of us had memorized. We didn't want to get our girls in trouble. So on the weekends we didn't bother with the whole sneaking around deal. We just barged in. The other sisters had grown quite accustomed to our presence.

Some girl answered the door. I hadn't really bothered learning the names of girls Cat wasn't friends with. This one looked older, a senior maybe. She was tall and lithe, with straight black hair and tortoiseshell glasses. She looked vaguely familiar, so I had seen her before, even if I didn't know her name.

And she had definitely seen us.

Her eyes widened as she took in the sight of four over sized, over muscled shirtless Indians standing in the doorway. Her heart quickened just the tiniest bit and her eyes slid over us in that appreciative way we'd grown used to since the transformation.

Her brow furrowed, like she was trying to remember the answer to a difficult question. "Lets see…" She mumbled. "Cat and Nessie and Lesie and…? They're out right now, I'm sorry."

Collin and I exchanged worried glances. I didn't want Cat gone now. I felt my pulse skip, my chest tighten up. That annoying pulling sensation I had grown used to feeling towards Cat a long time ago became more demanding, pulling me harder and harder in her elusive direction to the point where it was near pain. It was what happened every time I didn't see Cat when I needed her.

Her forehead relaxed, and she smiled welcomingly. "But you can wait in here, if you want." She stepped back and took us to the living room where there were about four couches scattered about. "I'm Ellen, by the way." She added, looking at me. "It's Embry, right?"

"Embreeeee!!" A voice squealed. A voice that immediately relaxed my chest, the pulling, and my pulse the second I heard it. My face, which had previously wore a wall, that unreadable expression Id come to think of as the "Sam" look, melted into a grin a mile wide.

Cathryn bounded into the living room, climbing over the couch that separated us in one quick leap and into my arms.

"Gone, are they?" Jacob muttered." Ellen blushed and left the room quickly, her head down.

Cathryn laughed. "Idiot." She said cheerfully.

I had just enough time for a quick kiss before the others came in, all jabbering at once. Cat was the only one who had changed out of the dress she'd worn to the Baptist church about a mile away from campus. Cat whatched the three couples for a second before turning back to me. "See?" She asked. "See what she has turned us all into?"

My jaw clenched. I wasn't pissed enough to shake. Not yet. But I didn't like Mikki. I didn't like that she cause Cathryn to throw herself at me like this was the last time we'd ever see each other as opposed to her usual eye roll and accusations of clinginess and over protectiveness.

The others agreed. The four of us sat down on the couch, our imprints perched in our laps, and listened as they related to us the horrors of the past 48 hours.

All I have to say about said 48 hours is this:

Terrible as Mikki is, I gotta give her props. It is a rare person that manages to make Cathryn look sweet and spineless in only two days.

**Im back! REVEIWREVEIWREVEIW!**


	4. Chapter 4

Embry'sPOV

I was stalking Cathryn.

Now, I realize that in the soulmate handbook somewhere there is probably something about building an open and trusting relationship with your partner and letting them share with you what they will in their own time. That will put less pressure on said partner and cause them to open up even more….

Or something like that.

But come on, guys. Lets be realistic. Cathryn? Open up? Share Her FEELINGS? Assuming she actually has them?

Go on. Don't feel bad. I did the same. Laugh. Laugh until you cry.

Besides, it wasn't just my imprint that was involved here. There was also Keilly and Leslie and Nessie. Jacob had whatched them the day before. Collin would tomaoorow, and Seth after that. Now was my turn.

And Let me tell you: Mikki was treating Cathryn awefully. And I know that my version of somebody treating Cat horribly is probably a lot milder than anybody else's, so let me just give you a little recount, shall I?

Morning: Cathryn is rudely awakened by a giant combat boot thrown at her head. Now, I can see how Cat could have had to be rudely awakened. She was certainly not what you would call a morning person. On the rare occasions that I slept with-and I mean spend the night with, not the OTHER kind-I literally had to pick her up out of bed. But a _combat boot?_ Come on. Harsh much?

Cathryn, ofcourse, didn't take that sitting down, and fully defended her self by throwing a bunch of stuff back at her. But all she really had at hand was a pillow and a pair of bunny slippers. Plus, as you may have figured out by now, Cat isn't what you'd call the most hand eye coordinated person in the world, so Mikki made it out more or less unscathed.

And after that, at breakfast, Mikki accidentally-on-purpose spilled her giant glass of orange juice on her jeans. Cat had to go back and spend the rest of the morning changing and cleaning her pants. She didn't have time to eat and even then she was still late for her class. A class for which she had forgotten her laptop and could not take notes. She spent the time she normally reserved for lunch copying them from Lina.

Afternoon: There is a huge rainstorm. I got soaked even though I was under this really dense bush the whole time. Cat heads back to the house in her thick hoodie and school books. Mikki walks up behind her-or runs, I should say. It was obvious she was trying to catch up to her. She tripped Cathryn. It wasn't too hard, seeing as she had been walking through a puddle at the time. In heels, no less. Who knew Cathryn actually owned heels? Sexy little stiletto ones, too, that made her legs look like they went on for miles. She sure didn't where them around _me._ Anyway, tripping Cat didn't take up that much energy for Mikki.

So Cat lands on her hands and knees in the water, mud splattering all over her shirt and jeans- second ruined pair that day- and her books go flying. Luckily though, they landed on the rock a few feet in front of her. It was a soaking rock, but a rock can't get that wet, so it was okay. At least until Mikki recovered from her kick and started walking again. Right into her books. Which went flying into another puddle. Causing Cathrfyn to scream a series of profanities at her retreating back.

And I gotta say, much as I hated to see Cathryn go through a day like that-and I was totally getting my revenge. Nobody treated my girl that way-it might have been worth it just to hear the murderous tone in her voice as she yelled. I like a girl with backbone, I have realized.

Something I should have figured out by the second day of my imprinting five years ago, but hey. Better late than never.

Cathyrn's POV

"Omigod."

"_sweetie!"_

"What happened?"

"Are you okay?"

"Do you need anything?"

"Do you need to re-copy my notes?"

"Here. Drink this."

Keilly shoved a mug of peppermint tea into my numb and dirty hands. Not the most logical thing to do, in my opinion. I had always been taught that when your hands are cold they are supposed to be warmed slowly. Holding a burning cup didn't really fit into that category. Not to mention the fact that I had to put the cup down almost immediately in order to wash my hands off from the mud. But Keilly never thought of things like that. She thought that tea was the meaning of life./ The cause to all problems. She lived off the stuff. Sweet tea, tea with lemon, iced tea, hot tea, tea leaves, tea bags, orange tea, strawberry tea, peach tea…

Peppermint tea.

As I washed my hands, I could feel the gazes of six pairs of eyes burning holes into my frigid back. Shane, Lina, Becca, Leslie, Keilly, and Nessie had all been in the kitchen, perched on various countertops and chairs when I arrived. I'd gone to the kitchen because I knew that that was the one place Mikki was sure never to go. She was starving herself. Seriously. The rest of us whatched her, and she consumed about eight hundred calories a day. The amount I usually burned during my jogs.

"So…?" Lina let her voice trail off.

I took a sip of the tea. It was good, I had to admit. "No, lina, I do not need to copy your notes. Again. My laptop is upstairs and unscathed. Unlike everything else that I own." I grinded my teeth together.

It was one thing to have a witch in my sorority. It was one thing to be harassed, bullied, and targeted on a daily basis by one specific girl. Other girls dealt with stuff like that. I had been the prosecutor in the bully vs victim relationships plenty of times, so if that was all it was I'd just be getting what I deserved.

But Mikki had been my friend. My best friend. And all I had done to her to change that status was be my usual, irresponsible self. I was just being ME! But apparently I'd been more neccisary to Mikki's sanity than I had realized, because she appeared to have gone round the bend in my absence.

And now I hated her. Deeply and irreversibly and awfully.

"Something must be done." I said to the six of them ominously.

"Amen!" Leslie reached up and undid her ponytail, letting her flat ironed black hair fall down her back.

"Guys…" Renesmee bit her lip, obviously trying not to smile.

Yeah, she's not so saintlike as she leads others to believe.

"What, yhou're not seriously protesting, are you?" Shane demanded, tossing her red hair.

"No, but how…?" Nessie let her words trail off. She wasn't one for explaining the way she was feeling. Out loud. But the fact that none of our sisters could know about her little talent resulted in half formed sentences such as these.

We'd gotten used to it.

"There's still the initiation." Lina sang, her eyes sparkling evilly.

"What initiation?" I demanded. "I didn't get one."

"You didn't need one." Shane said. "You and Nessie were friends of Keilly and Leslie, and they were already sisters. So you two got to stay in bed while Lina and me and the other freshmen got to sneak into Alpha…something, I forgot the name-"

"And spend the night there without being caught." Lina's lip curled. Obviously not a pleasant memory. "We all had to cram into the cuboard under the sink and stay there.. For. Seven. Hours."

"We couldn't even use the bathroom!" Shane cried.

"And it was so _hot-"_

"And there was a rat-"

"And we couldn't scream-"

"Okay." Nessie interrupted, cutting them short. "So we need to give Mikki an iniciation?"

"Well," Keilly looked worried. "We'd need to ask the president-"

"Is that all?" I almost laughed.

Amber was a tall girl who played basketball and golf and was on the Honor Roll. She had never cussed in her life, still had her virginity-not that I _didn't_ still have my virginity, I hadn't let Embry get that far yet-and was virtually sweet to everybody. The professors adored her, _she _certainly had never needed to copy lina's notes, and I looked up all my sister's body mass indexes once, out of curiousity and maddening boredom, and Amber was right in the middle. The healthiest weight you could possibly get. Her makeup never smudged, she didn't sweat and her hair didn't frizz or get stringy in the rain. She was perfect.

Which is to say, she was a spineless fake.

"AMBER!" I yelled, trampsing through our house and sloshing my tea everywhere as I went. "WHERE ARE YOU?"

Embry's POV

I had to hand it to her. She did good. So good, actually, that it was a little scary. Sometimes it was like she could read my mind. How she'd known the perfect way to get back at her was just…send her outside.

Granted, it was for the whole night in about ten degree weather, but still. Mikki was going to have a way worse time with me around than she would were she alone.

"So I seriously have to do this to get in?" I heard Mikki ask. Her words would have sounded only skeptical to a human, but my ears could hear the trembling, smell the adrenaline.

She was afraid.

"Yep." Amber said. Her voice was full of cheerfulness. True or false, I wasn't sure. I could never tell with her.

"Unless of course you're afraid." Cathryn's voice, even when dripping with disdain, sounded like an angel's. "I doubt any of us would mind if you decided this sorority was a little too…gutsy for you."

Mikki's heartbeat quickened. But I was pretty sure this was from anger. "I am not afraid." She said, her voice dangerously controlled. "But I can't even have like a sleeping bag or a flashlight or something?"

"Nope!" Becca sang. "Not a thing!"

"See you in the morning." Cathryn hissed.

The back door closed. I listened as the sisters made their way upstairs to the warm haven of their beds, whispering and giggling excitedly about the sweetness of revenge.

They had no idea.

Drew was actually in my head as I thought this, running patrol. Alone, oddly enough. Things had been going so smoothly lately that Sam and Jake had seriously loosened up. Drew wasn't as angry as I was. He didn't see the point in all this. Didn't understand why I was so angry.

__

Dude, this is stupid!

If it had been Quil or Jared or any imprinted wolf saying these things to me, it wouldn't have bothered me. Heck, I might have even listened. But it was Drew, a wolf who had absolutely no idea what it was like to be in love. Especially imprint love. He didn't know the anger that raced through my veins at the thought of her being hurt. He never would.

Which was why it was so annoying._Shut up!_

Not that I wasn't unwilling….

She was here. Only about ten feet away, and her steps had slowed even farther. I waited impatiently. The problem with doing things like this was that I sucked at them. Whenever I got nervous about something, I either babbled or chickened out completely. Either way I usually ended up screwing stuff up. Like the thing with Cat. Sure, it had turned out okay in the end, but had I been the one to spill the beans?

Nope.

And this was more or less the same. Or it would have been, if I was human. Fortunately my phasing had matured me in that area quite a bit, so only the big things-tranlation: things that involved Cathryn-disabled me like that now. Still though, I had to pay attention.

I did, though. I waited until about three seconds after her heart rate excelarated. Right when she had started freaking herself out.

I stepped out of the cover of the trees, slowly creeping, careful to make my paws make absolutely no noise against the icy ground. I crept until I was about three feet away. She was facing away from me, her shoulders already tensed. Like she knew what was coming.

_This is not cool. Em, man, don't. its mean. I'v got I really bad feeling-_

_I thought I told you to shut it!_ In my irritation, I let out a growl.

Mikki whirled around faster than I would have thought possible for a human. She was tall, so my nose was only a couple of inches above hers. I met her eyes, baring my teeth.

She let out a terrified half gasp-half whimper and staggered back a few steps.

Is it bad that I enjoyed it? Her obvious fear, her helplessness?

_YES!_

I ignored him this time, just fueled my annoyance with him with the anger on Cat's behalf, and roared.

"Emegawd!" Miki's word came out all slurred together. She sounded close to tears.

I crouched, crawling forward on my hunches like a cat getting ready to pounce. I felt really stupid, but it had the desired effect.

She turned and ran, her feet stumbling over themselves in effort to get away. Too bad for her it was the speed she'd been concentrating on rather than the direction she went. Her forhead hit the trunk of the tree with a loud Crack! And she fell back, skidding a couple of feet in the snow. She looked up at me, literally shaking in terror.

_Look, you got her, happy? She's scared now. Back off!_

And he was right. I had gotten what I wanted. Tears were coursing down Mikki's dark face, practically freezing on her cheeks in the cold. Her breath came in unstable gasps, and, like I said before, she was shaking.

In fact, for a minute there, I felt some sympathy for the girl;. Not strong sympathy, of course, but some. She looked so small, so defenseless there. For a split second, I caught a glimpse of the girl that was once Cat's best friend

._That's why you'r stopping? Because of CATHRYN?_

_Uh…no?_

_Drew seethed._

I gave Mikki one final growl before disappearing. I ran away too fast for her human eyes to see. Not in the dark.

**And we have Drew's protective's side. No guesses yet as to why he is acting this way................ **

**REVEIW!**


	5. Chapter 5

Cathryn's POV

"Cat, sweetie!" My mom's bubbly voice filled my ear.

I inhaled deeply through my nose, thanking the sweet lord above that his birthday was in two weeks and my world was filled with heavenly cheer. Otherwise, I never would have been able to get through this past week with Mikki.

Or this phone conversation with my mother.

Now, I love my mother. I really do. Especially since I moved out and went to college. I had found that I appreciated her more and more now that I-okay, I and about forty others-was cleaning my own toilet. I probably wouldn't get this annoyed with her at all anymore if it weren't for the whole not aging thing. Stuck permanently in the teenage years and all. I should have been exiting all that by now. But I wasn't and there were times when I honestly wasn't positive she had a brain in that head of hers.

Like with Mikki. How had she not realized she'd turned into a whackjob? I mean, I know that if _my _daughter's ex-best friend's parents had called asking about a sorority across the country and hinting that she was having problems, _I _certainly wouldn't have okayed it. No normal mom would have. Not unless her daughter was a satan spawn.

Which I wasn't. I was no Mother Teresa, but I wasn't evil.

"Hey, Mom!" I greeted her, trying to make my voice as peppy as hers. It was a useless attept.

Thankfully though, she didn't notice. "How are things" She asked eagerly. "Have you braught presents yet? Talked to your brothers, because he's really been-"

And that's when I tuned her out. Cassie's conversations with me were typically one-sided. I mostly just said a whole bunch of yeses. Even the questions about how me and Mikki were getting along.

"Great," I said, forcing some pep into my voice. "I really like her."

And I did. When she was asleep.

Because my mother is pushing fifty, you know. You can't tell an old lady that she had braught Darth Vader herself to live with her baby girl. It might give them a heart attack! Then I'd be an orphan. Who would walk me down the asle at Mine and Embry's wedding? Not Bob, certainly. I absolutely refuse to have those geeky glasses in any of the wedding pictures.

So…yeah. Between the Mikki thing and sneaking-out-daily-to-see-my-dangerous-werewolf-boyfriend, I mostly just lied a whole lot, and not well at that. Which sucked, because I'd been trying really hard to lie less than ten times to my mother per phone conversation.

I had exceeded my limit. Big time.

Especially when she told me some big news….

Chapter 7

Embry's POV

When I'd invisioned my reunion with Cathryn once she'd come back from spring break, it had gone a lot more smoothly than the actual thing. She'd come running into my arms, talking a mile a minute about how much she'd missed me-since the previous night, when she'd snuck out-and how happy she was to be back in Lap Push. We had spent the day on First Beach, laying on the frozen solid pebbles, talking and kissing the entire time.

But, hello, this is Cat we are talking about.

Hey, at least she got the leaping into my arms part right.

"Call!" She exclaimed, her voice torn between reproach and betrayal. "This is terrible." It was terrible. She'd been in my arms exactly three seconds, and already she was pissed.

"What's wrong?" I said warily, carrying her towards my car.

"Oh, I don't know," Cathryn's voice was laced with sarcasm. "Lets see, we've got mistetoe. Family togetherness, presents, romance…what are we missing?"

I didn't actually really want to know what she was so mad about. I just wanted her to get over it. So instead of making her spit it out, like I would have otherwise, I played along. "Friends?" I guessed the first thing that came to me.

"YES!" Cathryn lifted her head from my shoulder triumphantly. "That's _exactly _it! We are missing friends. Or that's what my lovely mother thought anyways."

I leaned against my car, pulling her closer as she shivered.

"Go on." She commanded. "Ask me. Ask me what she did." Her voice had a slight tremor in it from her teeth chattering.

Or at least, thats what I thought it was from.

"What?" I asked.

I whatched as Cathryn's eyes filled with-I swear I'm not kidding-tears, her hair whipping even more ferociously at her face. "Mikki!" She cried.

And that was all it took. All it took for my former irritation with her to melt away. Instead, I felt a white-hot anger in my chest. I hands shook, my vision tinted red.

I honestly think that at that point I hated her more than Cat did.

There was only one way to fix this.

"Can I kill her?" I blurted.

Cathryn's heartbroken expression vanished, and she laughed.

I didn't.

"I'm serious." I told her.

I was. Technically, I know I'd gotten my revenge on Mikki that night when I'd scared the bejesus out of her in my wolf form, but who was to say she hadn't done something else? I mean, It had been four days. Jacob and Collin and Seth had all said that Cat was fine, but I didn't trust them. They knew that., And it didn't offend them. They felt the same way about me. All four of us knew that we were going to be too busy whatching our own imprint to pay much attention to anybody else's.

So I probably owed her another scare.

Only this one wouldn't be a threat.

"Come on." I pressed. "At least let me give her some scars."

"You mean like Emily's?" Cathryn asked me.

I stiffened. Poor Cat. It made sence that I'd imprinted on her. She had no tact. If it weren't for her huge and scary looking boyfriend-who also had way better people skills than her-she'd probably get her face pounded in on a daily basis.

Cat sighed, seeing the look on my face. "Was that mean?" She asked me.

"Sorta." See? Tact.

"She does have them though!"

"So?" I shrugged. "If a guy has man boobs, you don't tell him."

The corner of Cathryn's mouth twitched as she fought a giggle. "I do. I'm doing him a favor. He needs to start excersizing. Or at least spare the rest of us and get a bra."

I laughed. "You're a piece of work, you know that?"

"You're begging me to kill somebody, and I'm the piece of work?"

"Good point."

"Seriously, Em, you can't become a murderer. We will just have to find some non-illegal methods of torture for which to use on our little Mix."

I grinned at her.

**Guess what????? It snowed. In Georgia. It snowed. For three days. In January. We got out of school. That NEVER happens, okay? Like, NEVER. So I am very happy about that.**

**And I would be even happier if I got a bunch of reveiws for this chapter, hint hint**


	6. Chapter 6

Cathryn's POV

"Cathryn!" My mother greeted me enthusiastically. For once though, her gag-me sweetness was not genuine. She looked like a pre school teacher whose favorite student had just barfed on her skirt.

"Hey," I drawled, surveying the scene in front of me.

It was not a pretty one.

Oh, sure, there was holly and wreaths and mistletoe and itty-bitty glass angels everywhere you looked. Not that you would look. Your gaze would be claimed by the positively humongous Christmas tree sitting in the living room, decked with ornaments and herbs and popcorn strings and candles. Under it sat the biggest pile of presents I'd ever seen, and right off the bat I could spot that a few of them were from me.

Bob was nestled comfortably ion the couch, a copy of _A Christmas Carol_ in his hands. Mark and Lizzie were on the floor, legs crossed and staring up at the television like little kids. On the flatscreen the movie _The Santa Clause 2_ was blaring. My mother was in the kitchen, sticking some festive casserole in the oven.

It seriously looked like something out of a sitcom.

Or it would have, were it not for the tense undercurrent in my mother's voice, and the coffee-skinned girl with dredlocks at the table with an absolutely angelic expression on her face that did not quite mask her blood-shot eyes or her the black t-shirt she wore with the words f---k you on the front.

Actually, the red sweater she had on masked that last bit. But if you looked closely you could still see the lettering through the knit.

I chose to ignore her for the time being, and for as long as humanly possible. What could we do, send her on a plane back home? Not likely with Cassie around, Queen of Etiquette.

"Is everything all right, Mom?" I widened my eyes innocently.

"Oh fine, fine!" Cassie assured me, slipping off her oven mitts. "Its just…well, we were expecting you home a little sooner than that."

"You just got home from a whole cemester with your friends!" A deep voice spoke up from the floor. Mark had twisted around and was looking at me with undisguised hurt and anger in his eyes. I didn't blame him. I would have felt the same way if he'd left me to deal with our crazy family and the even crazier Mikki for-I checked the clock above the stove. Five hours! Dang, I had been gone a long time-without even greeting me.

Because I hadn't. Seen Mark since September, I mean. He and Lizzie both went to Lincoln. When I'd gotten home that morning, he hadn't been home yet. And then I'd had to see my _other_ family, so….

"Mark!" I exclaimed, my voice filled with that same cheesy false pleasure that my mother's had been. "I've missed you!"

"Really?" Mark raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah!" I kept up the fascade as best I could, walking over and giving him a hug, which he did, to his credit, return. "Come up to m room later and we'll talk." I whispered into his ear.

I pulled away a second later and looked back at Cassie. "I meant to call," I lied. "But I got kinda caught up…and you know that most of my friends don't go to that college!"

"Half of them haven't gone to college at all." Lizzie pointed out.

I dropped the cheer.

"Oh, and like you're Miss Scholar!" I snapped. "The only reason you were let in is because Bob donated-"

"Cathryn!" Bob intervened, giving me a warning look.

"It doesn't matter." Lizzie kept on going, oblivious to my anger. "You weren't with them, anyway. You were getting knocked up."

"Lizzie!" Mom looked appalled. "We do not say things like that in this house! You know good and well that is not true! Apologise to your sister this instant!"

"Sorry." Lizzie shrugged and looked back to the TV.

So did Mark and I.

That was when Papaya came in, shooting down the stairs in a black blur and around the couch, into my arms. "Hey, girl!" I laughed, burying my face into her black poodle hair. Thank God for it, too. I was a terrible liar, and my guilt probably showed on my face. I _had_ been with Embry, after all.

Just not that way, of course.

Embry's POV

Here's the thing about being an imprinted werewolf: we worry. Like, all the time. Nonstop. Neverending. About _everything._ If they have a mole, we immediately freak about skin cancer. If they throw up, we worry about bulimia. If they get sick, we think it's the Swine Flu. We worry.

Even about stuff that has already happened.

Like today, for instance. All day had been good. It was one of the last days before it ended for Christmas, and things were way slow. Nobody around but my boss and the others that worked there, and they were all in these great moods, whistling carols and packing up whatever they couldn't go without for the week we'd be off.

But I was going around wondering about the incident three years ago.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, then I strongly suggest you read it.

But since I'm going to assume that you do know what I'm talking about, I'm just going to come out with it:

The Vulturi are evil.

Pure evil. Every last stinking one of them. I hated the lot of them five years ago when they'd come to kill Nessie. That was nothing compared to the way I felt now. Because this time they'd touched _my _imprint, hurt _my _sole reason for existence. And all because they wanted us dead in the best way possible. Best meaning a way in which they looked innocent to the other vamps. Because they were too lazy to do it themselves, to cowardly to face what every one else would believe now, too weak to be able to withstand it all.

Of course, their little plan had been foiled. Turned out one of their buttholish spies did have a heart some where in all that ice, and it had fallen hard for Cocoa, a friend of the wolves. And that was what saved us, in the end. Pure chance. A stroke of brilliant luck. Lucky that the other vamps had taken cocoa when they'd taken the other imprints. Lucky They hadn't killed anyone yet by the time we arrived.

Luck didn't last.

And the Volturi weren't the kind of leeches to give up easily. If they felt threatened by something, they would not stop until it was eliminated. I knew that from both personal experience and by what I'd heard from Carlisle.

It made me wonder when they'd strike again. Because they definitely would. We all knew that. Even the imprints, although they weren't at all worried about it. Something that for the life of me I could not fathom. Seeing as it was their lives that had been on the line ast time, and there was zero guarantee that they wouldn't try it again. Surely they could see that it had all been chance, a fluke? There was no way we'd be able to do what we'd done a second time.

Not that I was going to say anything….

I glanced at the clock. It was six o'clock. I could leave now, thank God. Even though I'd done well in both, I'd hated school and soccer practices as a kid. Pretty much anything I had to do, had to work at. Kind of flakey, in that respect. And as an adult nothing had really changed. Only now it was about work and patrol.

As I packed up, I tried to shake off the bad feeling. I needed to be more like Cathryn. She never worried about anything, ever. In her opinion, stressing about stuff didn't change the situation. Unless of course it made everything worse. There was nothing anybody could do but wait, short of catching a plane to Italy and challenging the Volturi.

Like that would ever happen. We weren't suicidal.

And anyway, anything like that happening was far off in the future. We'd beaten them twice in the last decade. Their pride was hurt, at the very least. They weren't going to try anything for a while. Years and Years from now, maybe…

Not that that made anything better. The fact that imprints didn't age any more than werewolves tripled, quadrupled our lifespan. Cat and I could live as long as the Romanian vampires had, if we wished. So years and years in the future wasn't really that far off in the grand scheme of things.

Its funny, isn't it, when you find yourself thinking about something, and then it happens?

Cathryn's POV

A blow up bed. That was the accommodations Mikki got for the following month she'd stay with us. That was all. Just one full size blow up bed-not as small as a twin bed, but close-and about three feet of storage space in the corner next to it for her to put her junk. This little misfortune would have thrilled me under any other circumstances, but now I was horrified.

Because the blow up bed was in _my_ room.

That's right. The demon child was intruding in MY room on MY floor and sharing MY bathroom. What if her evilness was catching? Seriously! It is a scientificly proven fact-well, I think it is anyway- that you act differently around certain friends. And when you are put into an unbearable situation,you adapt. And sharing a room with Mikki was definitely an unbearable situation. So what if I adapted…and actually started to _like_ her? And if I started to like her, I'd eventually consider her a friend. And if I did that, I'd start acting like her!

Kill me. Just kill me now and put me out of my misery.

And I couldn't even complain about this to Mark in the dead of night, because it would wake Mikki up! She'd either pitch a fit, or she'd pretend to still be asleep as evedrop on every freaking word we said about her, which she'd use against us later. Neither outcome was worth the risk, so I just went into Mark withdrawl.

You see what is happening here! She is preventing me from spending time with the only family member that I actually like! The girl has a gift, I'll give her that. She causes me pain without even trying. Slowly separating me from everything and every one I care for…. She had even taken Papaya away from me. She was angry with me, I think for leaving her along with Bob abd Cassie for four months. Whatever the reason, she was curled up next to Mikki, snoozing away.

I sat up in bed with exaggerated slowness, careful not to make the springs squeak. I looked over at Mikki's dozing form across the room, which had thankfully not moved. She could keep me from my brother, but not Embry. I hadn't seen him in almost two days and, judging from the way my phone had been vibrating, he was ready to kidnap me.

But my mother's possessiveness, carefully goaded by Mikki, had lead to the decree of Family Togetherness.

Translation: no boyfriend till break is over.

I was an adult though, legally. Or so most people thought. I wasn't too keen on letting them in on the fact that I was actually two years younger thsn that. I didn't have to follow their rules. But if I wanted to have a relationship with my family, I had to at least pretend to respect their decisions.

But I had to see Embry. Or rather, Embry had to see me. And I cared about his wants way more than I did Cassie's.

I carefully put one toe on the hardwood, listening for any sound coming from the corner. There was none, thank God.

At least until I turned the knob leading out to the balcony.

"What are you doing?" Mikki demanded, sitting up sharply. There was nothing drowsy about her.

" Um…I…" I thought for a minute about making up an excuse. But that had never been my strong point. So I came out with it. "Look, don't tell anyone, okay?"

"Why would I keep a secret for you?" Mikki's voice grew louder, which surprised me. Mikki never yelled. "I don't owe you bull."

"Come on, please!" I tired begging.

"Why?"

I had been telling the truth so far…. "I'm going to see Embry,"

I knew this wasn't going to go over well. I was right.

"Seriously?" Mikki's voice was no longer just rising in volume. She was full on yelling. She stood up. "Cat, you used to hate guys! What the hell happened to you?!"

I gaped. I hadn't changed! I mean, not unless you counted the whole no-junk food thing. And my being friend with guys now. Back in Florida, boys had been like a foreign language to me. And my having a serious boyfriend. Who happened to not be human…and I knew about it. And not being so judgmental about cheerleaders.

Oh. Wow. I guess I had changed.

Still, it was nothing compared to the stranger standing in front of me.

"Are you kidding?" I laughed humorlessly, feeling my own temper flare. "I don't even know you! Look at you! Your _hair! _Not even the worst thing. You hurt people now, Mix! You aren't a good person!"

Mikki snorted. "You remember me as good?"

I shook my head stubbornly. "Its different now. You do it all the time, and you never stop, and you don't even care! About ANYTHING."

Mikki dropped her gaze. To anybody else, this would have seemed like a sign of defeat. But I knew Mikki. Or at least the shadow of her. I knew what she did when she lost it.

And her hands, balled up in fists at her sides, may have given away a few things.

"I wonder why." She said. Her voice had a hollow, dead ring to it. "It couldn't have had anything to do with the fact that my father died the same year my only friend moved across the country, now could it?"

If I was anybody else, I would have felt immensely guilty. But when I know that some one is intentionally trying to make me feel guilty, I just get pissed.

"How the hell was I supposed to know that?" I demanded.

"Because I called you. And emailed you. Multiple times, just _praying _that my best friend, the only person I knew who knew exactly what it felt like to loose a parent, would answer the damn phone and at least make it a little easier."

"Boo-hoo." I said dully, leaning against the door.

"Obviously though, you don't care about that anymore." Mikki shrugged, and her gaze went back up to meet m y own. He eyes were hard. "Fine though. Go see your boyfriend. Just don't think that just because your folks are around, I'm going to lay off. The rest of your college years are going to be torture, I promise you that."

I stopped listening after go see your boyfriend.

** Hi guys! Sorry for the lag in updating, I am a incredibly lazy individual. LIsten, I need your opinions on something:do you want me to post a stary I'm writing about Quil and Jacob and Embry's kids. Its from anybody's POV, its, like, diary entries and emails and stuff, but its really funny and makes a much better story line than you would thnk. Or at least thats what grace says. She has a fanfic called Cocoa's story which you can find under Collin/Quil if anybody want to read it.**

**Yeah, I'm doing some major advertizing here, I know.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Note: Hi everybody!!!!!!!!!!! I love you all. I'm slaphappy. Anyways, I POSTED THE KID STORY ABOUT EVERYBODY"S CHIULDREN!!!!!!!!!!!! PLEASE READ AD REVEIW. Especially the reveiw part. Oh, and read and reveiw this one too. The other one it s called And You Thought Our Parents Were Idiots, which is a terrible title, I know, so please reveiw or email me any suggestions for another title because I kind of hate this one. You can find it under the characters Embry/Quil Jr. or just clich on my little author picture and it will take you to my stories.**

**And remember. ALWAYS REVEIW.**

Embry's POV

Jacob, Quil, and I were outside the house and waiting on the porch long before Cathryn's car came into view. It wasn't so much as I could smell and hear her as it was that I could _feel _her. That pull tended to get stronger the longer I went without her, and it had been much too long. In my opinion, anyway. Jacob and Quil must have agreed with me though, because when I told them she was coming, they came outside with me. They still hadn't seen her.

"ABANDONMENT!" Quil yelled at her the moment she got out of the car, pointing a finger at her. "You LEFT me with this depressed guy for FOUR MONTHS. I demand an apology."

I didn't think I'd been _that_ mopey.

"No." Cathryn managed to say before she was totally swallowed in my tight embrace.

She hugged me back for a few much-too-short moments before pulling away and looking at the three of us with a fierce glint in her eyes that I'dcome to know well. "Em, we gotta do something. She's sharing a room with me now!"

Well, dang. That meant sneaking into and out of her room was out.

"We should look through her junk." Quil said. "Get some dirt on her."

"What if she doesn't have anything…?"

"She will if she's anywhere near as bad as you and Nessie have made her out to be." Jacob said. "Lets go."

………………………

What actually ended up happening was I snuck back over to Cat's room while Jacob and Quil and Cathryn stayed back at home. Cathry refused to go back there until she absolutely had to, and Jacob and Quil, whether they admitted it or not, had missed Cat and had some serious catching up to do. So I, being the saint that I was, went alone.

Mikki had a light snore going when I got up there, so I knew it was okay to mess around. The kid in me was sorely tempted to draw a mustache on her in permanent marker or dip her hand in warm water or one of those old tricks, but I knew in the long run that it wouldn't hurt anything, and Cathryn would be immediately blamed for both of them. I wanted to cause some lasting damage.

So, for maybe the first time in my entire life, I took Quil's advice and looked through her suitcase.

And I had to say, what I saw there was hardly a scandal. I mean, you know, nothing I wouldn't find in any other college girl's bag. Ratty bras, holey underwear, lingerie, t-shirts, skinny jeans…you know. Actually, it was more what I _didn't_ find that was scary. No mascara. No lip gloss. No foundaition. No zit cream, no shampoo, no conditioner, no forty-thousand unrecognizable body/facial washes and another forty thousand unrecognizable hair/body tools. Seriously. Nothing. The clothes that she had, obviously, was from the girl section in a store, but it was almost like I was looking through a guy's suitcase. I mean, Cat was no priss, but she would've looked like a shopaholic when compared to Mikki. It didn't make any sense.

Until I found something, at the very very bottom, that explained everything. Not just the lack of beauty products, but her general attitude towards everybody in general.

Six large ziplock bags. See though, so I could easily make out the white powder inside. Even if I hadn't, I would have been able to smell it. It was a testament to how unsuspecting I was that I hadn't smelling it before then.

Cathryn's POV

"Cat." Nessie greeted me when I opened the door. It was snowing out, and her hair was wet with flakes. Her eyes were rimmed with red, and it didn't occur to me until later that it was because she had been crying.

"Hey," I said casually, moving aside for her to come in.

She shook her head., "Can we talk out here?"

"Um," I looked over her shoulder, to the endless slush. My face had been exposed to the wilderness for about three seconds, and already it was stinging with cold. "I'd rather not."

"Oh," Nessie's eyes widened in understanding. She was so lucky she didn't feel things like that. "Then come out to my car. Your family doesn't need to hear…."

I went, expecting her to tell me something about the wolves or the Cullens. You know, supernatural stuff. The sort of thing my folks _couldn't_ hear. But once we were in and had the heat circulating throughout the whole car, her words had nothing to do with that.

"How did you and Embry get together?"

If any of you saw that coming, concratulations. You are smarter than I am. I had no idea. Nor did had have any idea why the heck she wanted to know. I mean, I'd expected I'd have to answer that question someday, but years from now. When my children were the ones asking it.

"Um, I'm not sure I understand…?"

"When did you start liking him that way? How did you know he liked you? When'd you realize it was more than that?" Those three questions flew out of her mouth with alarming speed, tumbling over each other and risng and dipping in emotion. She looked ready to ask more, but I cut her off in answering. As per usual, I was much too impatient for babbling.

"I started liking him after me and Hart broke up."

"Hart the asshole Hart?"

"Are there any others?"

"Why then?" She pressed, clinging to my every word. I felt unnerved. Myabe this was something you didn't know by now, but I really wasn't the type people came to for advice. I was farely certain that most of my friends, when encountering any sort of anversary, wondered what I'd do, then did the opposite.

"Look." I said uncomfortably. "Why aren't you asking your mom this stuff?"

"Because she worries too much." Nessie looked irritated. "My whole family does. Plus none of them…" Her voice trailed off and her cheeks turned slightly pink.

I sighed, but prepared to answer. Odd as this sounds, I did have that giggly girly side to me, and it wasn't one that I got to show very often. I knew the answer to every question she asked me, and a part of me-a very, very small part-wanted to tell her.

" I liked him because he took care of me then. He was the total opposite of Hart. He was going to do big things, scary things. It would all be so unpredictable, so dangerous. But for some weird reason, I felt safe."

Renessmee nodded, looking resigned. My answer hadn't surprised her. "But you dated Ethan." It wasn't a question.

"Well duh." I snorted. "Embry wasn't an option, I didn't think. And Ethan was…cute. So I went out with him, and I pretended I was in love with him. But then Cocoa told me that _Embry_ was madly in love with me-"

_"Cocoa _told you?!" Renesmee's eyes bugged. She leaned back against the seat and groaned in despair. "But Cocoa hates me! If she's the secret to all this…" She looked at me, her expression woeful. "I'm doomed."

"Wait." I caught something. "All this what?"

Nessie bit her lip, deliberating.

"Renesmee Cullen!" I took her shoulders. I would have shook them, but of course she was too strong for me to throw around like that. "Spill it!"

She said nothing.

You forget that she didn't have to. She had that creepy gift of hers. She raised her hand to my cheek, and suddenly it was Jacob. Everywhere. Everything. Beautiful, perfect Jacob, elicting a thousand emotions within me. Anger and passion and desire and love and….

Well, it wasn't as if I hadn't always suspected it was going to happen. I'd assumed it, even. She and Jake were perfect for each other. Like me and Embry, only they weren't quite there yet. But apparently that all was changing, and fast.

"Oh my God." I could feel my lips straining themselves from smiling so hard. "You're in love with Jacob Black."

"Please don't tell anyone." She breathed.

"Pshh!" I waved her off. "Don't need to! Its common knowledge. We've all just been waiting for the two of you to catch up."

Actually, we've just been waiting for Ness. But I was fairly certain that if I told her that, Jacob would murder me in my bed.

"So you think we could be together?" She almost sounded pleading, she said the words with such hope.

"Awww, that's so cute!" I fund myself gushing, purposely worrying her. "You sound like you're in a soap opera. Star crossed lovers and all that."

The hope left her face, chased away by irritation.

I smiled innocently back at her.

This was going to be fun.

**Ah, Jacob and Renessmee, together at last. Any guesses as to what was in Mikki's bag?**


	8. Chapter 8

Embry's POV

"Renesmee likes Jacob." Cathryn told me the next time I saw her.

A whole three days later. Criminally long time, in my opinion, regardless of whether or not I spent every waking minute of said three days spying on her through various windows in her house. She was being imprisoned. Her brother, having proved himself to be a very useful ali, was covering for her even now as she rested against me, her whole body on top of mine, my arms wrapped around her. In our defense, we couldn't exactly do it any other way. We were at the beach, and any body part of Cat's that touched the stones would, she swore, turn black and fall off. My pleasure had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Not that this all-contact status between us would change at all-whether it was negative ten degrees outside or a hundred and ten-during whatever time we got to spend together before the 'rents got suspicious. Which wouldn't happen for another four hours, she'd said.

"Well, that's something, I guess." I said in repsonse to this new peice of information.

I guess that probably should have pleased me more. But it was hard to see that small victory in a positive light when Jacob had been head over heels for her for years. Nessie finally developing a crush was a step in the right direction. A step out of the mile she had to walk to even get close to the way he felt about her. Which was, I suppose, better than the way most of us wolves had it. Cathryn would never feel the way about me that I did her. It was physically impossible for a human to feel that much. But a vampire might. At its strongest, deepest love, a vamp's could compare.

"That's something!" Cathryn exclaimed, sitting up on my stomach. "Its wonderful! Why aren't you happy?"

Well, it wasn't as if I could lie to her. I'd done that four years ago and it had turned out dreadfully. And she had as much of a right to know about this than she had to know about that stuff. Mikki had been her friend. She needed to know that she still was, deep down some where.

"Cat, when I looked through Mikki's suitcase-"

"Oh, God." Cathryn groaned. "What is it?"

The wind picked up. Cathryn tensed against the wind, her small body shuddering violently in the cold. I quickly pulled her back down to me and held her close, waiting until she stilled.

"Whadja find?" She persisted

"It was way at the bottom. And it was dark, I can't be positive that…I mean, I'm not exactly the most familiar with the way-"

"Embry!"

I inhaled slowly. Then, letting in out all in one quick sigh, I breathed, "Mikki is addicted to Crack."

Cathtryn's POV

"I'm going to go see Embry." I told my mother, holding my breath as I wqaited for her reaction.

For once, when I'd said I was going to see Embry, I hadn't been entirely truthful. I was going to see Embry, but with company. My main reason for escaping my home only a little over a week before Christmas was to see the pack as a whole at Sam and Emily's. Drew, Collin, Brady, Paul, Jared, Embry, Jacob, Quil, Leah, Seth, and all the imprints would be there. Plus the rest of Sam's pack whom I didn't know too well, but….

"Oh, that's right." Cassie's eyebrows furrowed only a little at the mention of his name. "You haven't seen him in a while, I guess…that's all right."

YES!!!!

* * *

The Uley's I soon discovered, are terrible planners. Kind of suprising. Think about it. Sam is the official and or unofficial leader of both packs, a title he has definetly earned and continues to prove his deservance. And Emily runs her own restauraunt, mothers a four year old, and feeds roughly thirty people if you include the imprints on a semi-regular basis. On a day to day basis, they have it going on.

I guess they were just too busy with the usual stuff that when they finally had the time they were so tired that they fell asleep before they could lift even a finger.

Which I can so fully understand. All I do is go to college and make out with my boyfriend, and I can't even find enough hours in the day! But seriously, it was a week before Christmas! A week before the birth of our savior, and they hadn't done so much as put up a wreath?

Pathetic. That is all I have to say.

That was all a bunch of us had to say, as it turned out. Sam and Emily's vision of a restful evening with friends evaporated almost instantly. Jared and Kim and Leah and Nate and Quil and Claire left to pick out a tree at opne of those Christmas tree farm places while the rest of us stayed to decorate with the resources we had at hand.

"Here's the last box," Paul said had he casually threw it to the ground.

"Don't!" Emily cried out.

"Really, Paul." Rachel agreed, seemingly torn between disgust and amusement. "There could be breakables in there."

"It's cool." Keilly said, rummaging through said box. "Everything survived…I thought." Her arm emergred, clutched in her hand an headless angel.

"My Goodness." I shook my head sadly. "You decapitated an angel, Paul. How's it feel?"

"Shut up." Paul hurled a glass ornament at my head.

Embry reached out and plucked it from the air with blinding speed and glared at Paul. "No throwing stuff at my girlfriend." His voice had an oddly familiar ring of authority to it.

"Yeah!" Emily whined. "You could've broken that one, too!"

"So I'm useless then." Paul's shoulders slumped in mock defeat.

"It's okay, baby, I still love you." Rachel patted his arm consolingly.

"Oh, gag me!" I moaned, feeling my skin turn faintly green at the positively repulsive look Paul gave her.

A look that was shortly followed by an equally revolting kiss.

"Avert your gazes, all of you." Brady cried, obviously sharing my feeling.

"You just wait till you imprint." Paul relatiated a good thrity seconds later when he'd gotten enough toungue to satify. "I will never let you hear the end of it. Ever."

"You're going to be waiting for forever then." Brady said. "Because I will never imprint."

"Your loss." Sam and Embry said in unison, both of them putting an arm around their imprints.

Which meant that I found myself locked in a scorching embrace that was somehow way less gross than when Paul and Rachel had done it.

"Hey!" Collin said suddenly, looking around. "Isn't there supposed to be an angel or something for the top of the tree?"

"yeah…" Emily said suspiciously.

"Well if you've got one, it isn't here."

Embry and I broke apart and joined the fray of people frantically searching the various boxes in the room the most important of the decorations. We examined every trinket, every angel, every garland. But it was nowhere to be found. Tragic, huh? Wait till you find out what happened after that.

"Lets see." Emily bit her lip, obviously wracking through her brain to the previous Christmas. "It could be in Mine and Sam's closet."

"I'll go check." Seth stood up.

"No!" Sam and Emily both yelled.

We stared.

"Er," Sam looked down, blushing under the copper of his skin. "Me and Emily will look."

Okay. Anybody besides me who really _really _doesn't want to know what is in their bedroom besides that angel?

"It could also be in the garage." Sam said over his should as they left.

"Or the laundry room." Emily added.

"Or the cupboard under the kitchen sink."

"Or the cupboard above the kitchen sink."

"Or the attic."

Thank god they were out of earshot after that, because there was no way I could have remembered that many possible locations.

"Do they even have an attic?" Andrew wondered. One of the wolves I didn't really know.

We split up, a few of us going to each location to look. Or should I say _they._ Much as I loved Sam and Emily, I really didn't feel like getting up, so when nobody noticed me as they left the room, I did nothing to sop them. There was no point, anyways. They weren't going to find it. They would have to make a trip to Wal-Mart at-I checked the clock on the wall- ten thirty at night for an ornamental angel.

I was not, apparently, the only one with this idea. Drew loun ged on the couch a few feet away from me, smirking. "Aren't you going to help?" He asked me.

"Nope." I popped my lips on the p. "Are you?"

"Nope." His grinned

We had maybe five minutes of peace before the doorbell rang.

"Cathryn!" Embry yelled from the laundry room. "Get that!"

"I'm looking in the guest bedroom!" I yelled back.

"No you aren't!" He responed.

Danged soulmate knew me way too well.

"Fine." I grouched, dragging my lazy butt up and stomping to the door.

"Mikki?" My fell open in shock.

"Your parents want you." Mikki said, her usually cool voice even more expressionless than normal.

"Ugh,"

"Who's this?" Drew wanted to know, appearing at my shoulder.

"Mikki." I said, making my disgust had plain as possible. Her coke addicvtion earned her absolutely no pity from me whatsoever.

Drew didn't, as I would have expected from the things I'd been saying about her, immediately make an excuse to leave or start cussing her out. He remained perfectly motionless behind me.

It was kind of weird. I craned my neck back, wondering if maybe he was choking on a candle or something.

Turns out it was worse.

His mouth was hanging wide open, his eyes popping even wider. The expression in them was a weird cross between soft, gentle love and fierce maddening addiction. It was the expression I fell asleep at night picturing, the expression I missed when I was away from it. Only on a different person.

"You're kidding." This time it was my voice that was flat, disgusted.

Drew jerked his head downward, as if it took physical effort to stop looking at her. "Don't tell anyone." He pleaded. "Not yet. Not even Embry, kay? They hate…" His voice trailed off as his gaze locked her eyes once more.

Mikki rasied an eyebrow at him before turning back to me. "Your friend," She said, jerking a thumb towards Drew. "Is weird."

"Yeah." I said hurredly. "He is. Tell Embry I had to leave." I slammed the door in his face.

I flew past Mikki and yanked open the door of my mother's car, of much less awesomeness than my own. The reason I wasn't fighting Mikki every step of the way home was because I knew that the second Embry got a look at me he would know something was up. And I didn't want him to know.

Not yet, anyways. Of course I didn't have the slightest intentions of doing what Drew had asked.

I just wanted the big reveal to be more dramatic than that.

**Hey guys. So yeah, as you all pretty much assumed, Drew has imprinted. On a crackhead. Who happens to be Cathryn's arch nemisis. **

**Thanks, alleycat97, that was like my favorite reveiw ever!**


	9. Chapter 9

Embry's POV

"We can't find it." I announced, walking into the living room.

Everybody else, I knew, was already there and without the ornament. Everybody else but the one person who mattered.

"Way to state the obvious." Paul said.

I ignored him, instead turning to Drew. "Where's Cathryn?"

Drew slowly looked up. He wore a dazed expression, like he'd been hit. "Who?" He mumbled.

Jacob snorted.

I was not amused. My stomach was doing that clenching thing it always seemed to do when I was worried about Cathryn. "Cathryn. Tarver." I pronounced each word carefully, like I was talking to some one who was mentally challenged. Which I was what I was begining to suspect Drew was. "Five seven, one hundred ten pounds, green eyes, auburn hair. Ring any bells?"

Drew blinked. "Oh. Yeah. Her."

"Well?" I demanded.

"A-a girl picked her up." He spoke carefully, like he had to think to make the words come.

This, understandably, considering what had happened a few years back, did nothing to ease the knot that seemed to have settled right behind my navel. "Who?" This time my voice wasn't just annoyed. It seethed fury.

"I dunno. Some girl. She had dreadlocks. I don't know her name."

This didn't seem to worry him in the least. In fact, the part that seemed to have upset him the most was the part about him not knowing her name. So stupid. Another stupid thing: I hadn't heard her leave. I'd gotten really good over the years at blocking things out, only letting what I heard less than ten feet away from me sink in. But I bended that rule with Cathryn. In the past, anyway. I was getting sloppy. Knowing her, that could have been a mass murderer and she would have left with her every bit as willingly as she had with Mikki.

Not to mention that it kind of annoyed me that she'd left without even saying good-bye to any one.

A thud on the door interrupted my over-worrying. I looked up, along with everyone else. I could hear scuffling on the other side of the door. My ears could tell that it was Leah and Nate and Claire and Quil and Jared and Kim. They were back. And with a very large tree, it seemed.

"Open the freaking door!" Jared bellowed.

Sam rolled his eyes and loped over, swinging open the door.

Where he was greeted by more green than I ever would have thought possible.

"Jesus." Brady muttered.

Rachel whistled. "Some tree." She said.

The ferns rustled around for a moment, and out of them emerged Leah and Nate. Nate had his head leaned on her shoulder. He wore a very grumpy expression on his face. "He got tired." She explained, and plopped down on the couch.

The tree quivered again, and this time it was only a head that showed. "So did she." A very irritated Quil said. "She's using him as an excuse not to help us."

"So what if I am?" Leah countered.

"Argh!" Claire stumbled in, a small scratch dragging across one cheek and leaves and snow in her curls. "That tree," She panted, pointing. "Will _never _go through the door."

"Such a pessimist." Quil shook his head indulgently, his previous annoyance forgotten. "We do need help though."

Of course they did.

Cathryn's POV

"Claire," I commanded, pointing imperiously in the opposite direction of where I was headed. "Leave."

Now, most children, when told by some one older than they are to go away, would get annoyed. Or hurt. They'd automatically assume that said elder was about to speak of something too 'mature' for their young ears. And they would not leave. But this particular eleven year old, under this particular circumstance, looked thrilled at the idea of escaping my presence. And so, head ducked to hide the shy smile spreading across her cheeks, she walked away, trailed closely by Keilly.

The reason for this was explained in one simple word: Christmas.

Claire, at the ripe old age that she was, had stopped believing in Santa Clause two years previously. Knowing this, she also knew that the presents under her tree every morning were actually from her parents, relatives, and…

Well, us.

And knowing _this, _we felt it perfectly all right to take her on our gift shopping expeditions. She was a much better shopping companion than your average kid. Patient and tactful, but honest. The three gazillion sports she played kept her in amazing shape, so she could shop till she dropped a whole lot longer than I could. But whenever we needed to buy something, we had to make her high tail it. So she always knew when she was getting something.

Like now, for instance. We were right outside Hibbit's, a sports equipment store. As I said, she was quite the athlete. And I'd just told her to leave.

Hmmm, that's not suspicious at all….

Whatever. I'd never been real big on the element of surprise anyways.

After Keilly and Claire were out of sight, Leslie, Nessie and I went into the store. There was a TV in the corner on VH1, and thankfully all of the music video's weren't carols. I was just as jolly as everybody else, but really, a girl can only take so many variations of 'Do you hear what I hear' before things get a little redundant.

Under the flatscreen stood rows upon rows of jerseys, sports bras, booty shorts, soccer shorts, and t-shirts with sayings on them like "If you can't pass me, get used to the view". Against the walls were shelves of cleats and tennis shoes and soccer balls and base balls and basketballs and baseballs and tennis balls. Against the other walls leaned baseball bats, basketball goals, and golf clubs. On little racks hung wristbands and hairbands and sweatbands. All of this in every color imaginable.

"Uh…Les?" I asked.

"Yeah?" She chirped.

"As the most athletic out of the three of us, I hear by promote you to telling us what to buy."

I looked at Nessie for a confirmation. She too looked utterly overwhelmed. I saw no protest in her dark eyes.

Leslie blew her bangs out of her eyes and looked around, deliberating. "Well, we know the likes basketball." She bit her lip. "There's something we could get her." She said it hesitantly.

Nessie gave me a fearful look. She'd heard it too. "What?" She said warily.

"We could get her a basketball goal."

I snorted. "Yeah, that wouldn't look conspicuous at all."

"We'd have it shipped, obviously." Leslie responded.

"By Christmas?" Renesmee wondered.

"Probably. It's only in Seattle."

"How much are they?" I demanded.

Leslie exhaled. I could tell from her expression that this had been the question she was hoping we wouldn't ask. "Like a hundred and seventy-five dollars. But," She added quickly. "It'd be from all of us. Me, you two, and Keilly. That's only like forty-five dollars apiece."

"Or I could just pay for all of it." Rensmee offered.

"No!" Leslie and I shot the suggestion down immediately.

"Then it would be like it was only from you."

"I'd feel like a moocher." I agreed.

"But you are a moocher." Nessie pointed out.

"True." I agreed. "But only about myself. I'm not going to let somebody else buy something for some one and put my name on it. That's just slimy."

"And forty-five isn't that much." Leslie pressed.

"I disagree." I told her. "We can't all get to college on a cheer scholarship, and I'm up to my ears in loans."

"So you don't want to get it?" Leslie asked.

Actually, I did. Claire was a rocking b-ball player. She was the best on her team in middle school, not to mention the only sixth grader that had even made it. But she didn't have a goal to practice with, and you had to pay to practice on the rec's. So she had to use this dinky little mini basketball on this plastic little rim that you hang on your door. She would love us until the end of time if we bought this for her.

"No, I do." I said. "I'm saying that I will make the sacrifice."

Nessie laughed and put her fingers to my cheek. A knight in shining armor leaped across my line of vision, riding a black steed and charging at an army of millions. _How noble of you._

I grinned at her. "I know, right? I make that dude in the metal look weak."

**Okay, so pretty much two little POV's of fluff. **

**Oooooh,look at the little reveiw button down there! I think you'd better do what it says............**


	10. Chapter 10

**ATTENTION ALL READERS! ATTENTION ALL READERS!**

**I need a beta. Badly. I'm making typos all over the place. Its shameful, really. And I want a second opinion on my storylines and stuff. I need one for all the stories I currently have posted, the last book in this series, a Seth fic that I haven't began posting yet, and a Sirius Black trilogy from Harry Potter. So if you're good at that sort of thing LET ME KNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!**

Embry's POV

"Hey!" I whisper yelled, rapping lightly on the door. "Let me in."

I waited a few moments before Cathryn came out in one of my old sweatshirts. It swallowed her small frame, the collar falling over one shoulder and the end falling down to her knees. The hood, which she had over her head, came down past her forehead, covering her eyes.

She looked a heck of a lot better in it than I ever had.

She gave me a gentle push backward. Of course it wasn't nearly hard enough for me to actually stumble, but I got the message and backed up a couple steps, leaning against the railing of her balcony.

"Hey, Romeo." She grinned, stretching up to her tiptoes and kissing me. The wind picked up, blowing so harshly that it was audible even in my human form, whistling and wailing into my ears. It was an icy wind, and Cathryn shivered against me, cringing a little. I picked her up and spun her around so she could sit on the railing. She wrapped her legs around my waist and wriggled as close as possible to my warmth, all the while not breaking the kiss.

After a few moments she wrapped her arms around my waist. Straddling me. I loved it when she did that, so much that it made me a little crazy. And so, it typical crazy person form, I abandoned the railing thing altogether, just took her into my arms and hoisted her up so high that it wasn't my waist she was straddling anymore, but my chest, and her head was actually _higher_ than mine.

I did it in blinding werewolf esque speed, and she gasped in surprise. Her lips parted and I drank in her breath, her scent, sliding my tounge in between her lips. Her breath caught in a small moan and her fingers moved from my neck to my hair, entangling themselves and pulling at the strands. I shifted subtly so that I was holding her with only one arm, letting the other one roam free. I moved my hand up, skimming across her smooth thighs and the valley of her waist, up to her chest.

This was when Cat usually made me stop. And this time was no exception.

Her lips became immobile against mine, her hands falling from my hair to rest docily on my shoulders and her legs loosening. I was the only one holding on now, like a parent toting around a child. She never pulled away when we did this. She couldn't, I was too strong to even notice her protest. She'd always just…stop.

I sighed against her lips.

"Come on." I persuaded, even as her head dropped away to rest on my shoulder, much like her arms. "Just a little longer."

"Mikki's in there, Embry." To her credit, she didn't sound too happy, either.

"Ugh." I shifted position again, cradling her now, like a baby. "Is she ever going to leave?"

Cathryn smiled up at me in a sweet, almost shy way before turning into me and hiding her face.

Which meant something was wrong. Her typical response to a question like that would have been a sarcastic 'never' at the very least. More likey though, she would have suggested that we end her stay ourselves and just kill her already. Under no circumstances would she ever have offered me nothing but a angelic little curve of the lips and a tactful silence. She just didn't _do _that. Other girls did that. Other girls were meek and fluffy and sugary sweet. But I didn't like other girls. If I wanted some one like that, I'd have just gotten myself a kitten or something and saved the trouble of climbing a tree two stories up to a freaking balcony!

"Cat…" I said warningly.

Cathryn sighed and squirmed around in my arms, climbing like a monkey around and over to my back. She straddled me again, as well as wrapped her arms around my neck. Piggyback style. "Take me down." She commanded. "There's something I need to tell you."

Cathryn's POV

Embry took me down to Sam's.

"Call the other wolves." He said as he stepped inside without knocking.

Sam looked up from some movie he and Emily had been watching. "Why?" He asked.

"I have no idea." Embry put me down.

"Has Drew been on patrol lately?" I asked, perching on the counter.

"No." Sam's eyebrows furrowed adorably along with Embry's. They looked just alike when they were confused.

"Good." I said. "Call everybody. In their human form."

It was time for me to tell them. I'd give Drew a chance to first of course, it was only fair, but either way, they'd find out. I was not going to sit around while Drew made a big fool of himself and got badly hurt. Because that was _so _what was going to happen. Mikki would find out and freak and never so much as look at him again. Which would be bad.

It was sad, seeing as I was one , but I knew virtually nothing about imprinting. Just what Cocoa had told me before Embry and I had gotten together. Love at first sight. Supposed to be together. And…that was about it. I had never seen what would happen to a werewolf if the imprint dumped them. Spend the rest of their lives alone, probably. Or at the very least, get married and look at said spouse all the time thinking to themselves, _I wish you were her._ Lovely existence, either way.

Poor Drew.

Maybe it was inevitable, but I was hell-bent on stopping it. Maybe I could get Jake to command him to leave him alone. Embry had told me how you couldn't get around an injunction. Mikki never had to know about any of this. She could go on with her crappy life, taking hits on Coke, maybe dropping out of college. The life she was supposed to live. The life that would never touch mine n any way, from the drugs to the boredom to the divorces and rehabs and crimes I didn't have to be Alice to be able to see in her future.

Although when she finally notices she hasn't aged, we might have a problem….

As the pack members arrived, they all did the exact same thing: they came in with urgent expressions, tense shoulders. Worried. Not surprising, seeing as what had happened the last twenty or so times the whole pack was called together for purposes strictly 'pack'. Once they were inside, they'd take a look around them- me laying across the counter singing 'hot' by Avril Lavigne in a very loud and off pitch voice, Embry making a total glutton of himself, eating everything in sight, Emily trying desperately and very unsuccessfully to cook faster than he ate, and Sam watching TV and _so _not in Alpha mode-and instantly relax.

Once they were all here, Sam stopped watching TV, Emily stopped cooking, Embry stopped eating, and I stopped singing.

"All right, Cat." Sam said, sitting up from the couch. "Spill it."

"Actually," I said. "I think Drew should.

"Me?" Drew asked, careful surprise in his features.

'Well, yeah." I said nonchalantly. "I mean, you're the one who imprinted."

I had been afraid, on my way to this point, that Drew had already told them. Or that he had been in his wolf form and people had read his thoughts. Or that the packs could tell something was up. But upon learning this information, they proved this wasn't the case. They all went ballistic.

"Oh, God!" Brady looked horrified. "Another one? I'm all alone now, people! All alone in the universe!"

"As you deserve to be." Embry said cheerfully.

Paul snorted. "If we all got the kind of happiness we deserved, Cathryn would have died that time the Volturi took her."

Embry's hands shook.

"Oh, chill, he was kidding." Rachel said impatiently.

"I wouldn't tell _Embry _to chill, Rachel." Quil teased. "Not when you haven't seen the way Paul used to be all the time."

"Yes but that was a very dark period of my life on which I do not like to dwell." Paul said, looking at Rachel, who blushed.

"Hey, now." Emily could see where this was going. "Issue at hand here."

"Right." Sam said seriously. He turned to Drew. "So, Drew. Who's the unlucky girl?"

"Hey!"

I had to yell over the din that was caused by that one little statement. One minute we are all having a calm and civilized-as civilized as you can get with a pack of beasts-and the next ice cream scoopers are flying. And being blocked by cookbooks so that they hit an innocent in the rebound causing said innocent's boyfriend to throw a jar of nuts at the culprit's head-

You get my point.

"Its Mikki," I said, looking at Embry. "He imprinted on Mikki."

"Cat!" Drew yelled.

"What?" I demanded, unabashed. "You think I'm going to keep your secret from my soulmate? Lie to him? Yeah, that'll start some good habits."

"You didn't just tell Embry!" Drew yelled, his fists shaking. Embry stepped in front of me warily. "You told EVERYBODY."

"Well it wasn't like they all wouldn't find out eventually." I pointed out.

Drew seemed to have no response to that. He just sort of stood there, glaring at me from behind Embry and shaking until Sam put his hand on his arm, steadying him. Embry stepped away from me after that, but he still kept an eye on Drew.

Everybody was quiet for a minute.

Then Keilly spoke. ""Thank God." She said. "We won't have to deal with her crap anymore."

Needless to say, this was not the response I had been anticipating. I'd been all geared up for the horror and dread and anger, and the violence that I'd been hoping would come along with it. Hopefully ending with Mikki some how getting killed. And Drew too, for that matter. Any body who imprinted on a girl like that obviously wasn't anywhere near as nice as they appeared.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

Keilly shrugged. "Now that she's with Drew, she'll get happier. And nicer."

"No she will not." I said stubbornly. There was no way Mikki would soften up that easily.

"Seriously, guys. You have no idea. She does crack, and stuff." Embry added.

I smiled up at him. It was nice having somebody who backed you up and agreed with everything you said just because you were you.

Not that I'm smittin, or anything.

"Oh, God." Quil must have seen the expression on my face, because he looked thoroughly revolted.

"So?" Collin asked, ignoring Quil. "We get her some help."

'But she's…" I struggled for a minute, at a loss for why people who I had previously thought hated Mikki just as much as I did were now defending her. "She's _her._"

"And you're you." Jake said calmly. "Do you know the response the pack had when Embry imprinted on you? We feared for his wellbeing."

"And now it turns out that those fears were well placed." Brady said. "Just look at them!"

Jacob rolled his yes. "What are we supposed to do, Cat?"

I stared at him, having no responce.

Jacob smirked. "I gotta go meet Nessie."

He left, banging the door behind him. I ground my teeth together at his confident swagger. Jake wasn't one to let being an Alpha get to his head, but he sure let winning arguments do it. I hoped he got there and Nessie had brought some secret vampire boyfriend to introduce him to. Though, if the conversation we'd had in my car was of any indication, that wouldn't be the case.

Emily watched him go. "You know what we need?"

"A shot?" Jared guessed.

"A wrestling match. In wolf forms. Jared and Paul. Outside. Now."

Random, I know. But Emily was a mother, and as such she always knew what it was that us children needed. And in this case it was a good no thinking, body slamming, tree decapitating round of wolf wars. My annoyance at having been blown off evaporated the second Embry beat Paul, Jared, and Quil and all the others at the wrestling, loosing only to Sam. And Jacob too, probably, if he hadn't been over at the beach or somewhere making eyes at Nessie.

Embry took me home about two hours later, reluctantly depositing me in my room to spend the rest of the night alone.

"You're sure I can't kidnap you or something?" Embry asked, leaning against the open doorframe.

I sighed wistfully. So, so tempting. Especially when he looked so serious, keeping those big brown eyes connected with mine and his hands on my waist as if afraid that I'd fly away if he let me go. "Some one has to make sure Mix doesn't kill herself with that coke."

"I hate her." He said wrinkling his nose.

It was pathetic how the two of us were so wrapped up in each other that I didn't notice she wasn't there until Embry was already long gone.

**REVEIW **


	11. Chapter 11

**Hey everyone, sorry its taken me so long. Wish I could give you some sort of reasonable excuse, but I can't. Just laziness. But I'm on winter break, so for the next 7 days I'll make up for it.**

Embry's POV

After I left Cat's I traced Jacob's scent to the beach. I knew I wouldn't be getting any sleep. Add a hot girlfriend to a LOT of rough housing and you get one major adrenaline rush. And I was curious as to how things with him and Nes were going. Now that they were both crushing on each other as opposed to the whole boy loves girl thing, it was sure to be awkward for them and highly amusing for me.

Or it would have been, anyway.

I met up with him next to the cliffs. He was pacing next to them, his shoulders hunched, his hands in his pockets. The expression on his face was one that, had my view of what was and was not sad been so badly currupted with thoughts of Cathryn dying that one time, would have looked to me the picture of heartache. He looked up when I approached.

"What's up?" I asked, almost afraid of the answer.

"Nessie was late." Jacob said. For as long as I could remember, whenever Jacob was in distress his voice had a humiliating tendency to crack, like he was near tears. It did this now. "Lizzie-you know, Cat's sister- was here and she recognized me. We started talking and I wasn't really paying attention and somehow she got me up against the cliffs-"

"Shit." I interrupted for a quiet curse under my breath. Why did I have a terrible feeling that I knew exactly what was coming?

"I swear to God we didn't kiss long. All of a sudden she was just-and I sort of stood there, I was in shock! That's when Nessie got here, and she saw…." Jacob's voice trailed off and he looked at his feet.

"Crazy bitch." I muttered.

"You should have seen the look on her face. It was like she'd caught me drowning babies or something." Jacob said bleakly.

"What you did was the equivalent of it in her eyes." I said, shuddering at the thought of what Cathryn would do to me if she'd caught me doing anything like that.

"I had no part in it!" Jacob's rose sharply and his head jerked up to glare at me. "It was assault!"

I looked away for a minute, giving him a chance to calm down a little. "So how she…I mean…what happened?"

Jacob's brows furrowed. "What do you think happened? She was mad! And so freaked out. She wouldn't give me a chance to explain." He turned his face away from me. "I don't know what's going to happen now."

I wanted to be able to tell him with complete honesty that Renesmee would forgive him, get over it in a week or so. But she was so innocent with things like that. She'd never been exposed to guys that were truly bad. She wouldn't be able to distinguish Jacob from that. There was only one thing that I could tell him with absolute certainty.

"If it's any consolation, bro, I'll tell Cat. She'll have Lizzie hanging from a tree by her toenails until spring."

Jacob snorted. "When I have Nessie back and I actually care about that, I'll let you know."

If that was the case, I'd be waiting for a long, long time.

Cathryn's POV

"MIKKI!" I yelled as I tramped through the woods.

Don't ask me why. God, don't. I had no idea. I shouldn't have been. I hated her, remember? Hated her deeply and passionately and irreversibly. This was good. I should have made Embry stay and I should have jumped his bones on the spot, purely out of europha. Because if Mikki froze to death out there, then I wouldn't have to deal with her anymore! Yay, right? Awesome.

Yeah, not so much.

Its was scary, is what it was. Freaking terrifying. Because it was _cold._ Not snowing, but it definitely would have been. It was just that for the first time in I don't know how many millennia, the skies over the Olympic Peninsula were not in the mood for precipitation. Not that that soothed my nerves in the slightest. It changed nothing. It meant only that when Mikki died, her carcass would be eaten by mountain lions as opposed to being buried in the snow and having to be thawed out by some poor hunter when she was finally found.

Evil as she was, the idea of going to her funeral thoroughly sickened me. Especiallly if it was my fault. Which it would be. It was because of me that she'd left in the first place, to follow me and Embry miles through the woods despite the fact that Embry was easily three times faster than her, even with a hundred and ten pound load. It was because of me that she'd seen and heard of what the people of La Push really were, and it was because of me that she didn't know about it already. And when she froze to death out there, it would be because I didn't try hard enough to find her.

These thoughts went round and round my head like a coaster ride. Round and round and round and round, never stopping but for a few seconds at a time, letting a new load of guilt on. I was so distracted with it that I didn't notice the temperature until a good ten minutes and a mile into my search.

The wind carried my hair across me, slashing at my cheeks like a whip, whispering in my ears. I could almost feel the ice in it. I shivered violently; wishing that I'd called Embry and looked with him. I made it maybe twenty more steps when I decided not to take it anymore. Sure, I was still totally going to find Mikki. I just needed to go back home first and put on every shirt and ever pair of leggings and sweats that I owned.

I turned. For some reason, I'd fully expected to see my house through the trees a few yards away, a clear marker of where I was. But obviously I didn't. Just trees and trees. For a minute I felt a rush of panick. How was I getting back? How did I know now that it wouldn't be me who froze now instead of Mikki, who for all I knew be back in my room, laughing hysterically at the thought of my buying her little prank and thus causing my untimely demise.

But don't worry. I am not as complete an idiot as these past couple books have probably lead you to believe. I do have a brain in my head. You know, a small one. Somewhere in there. And on occasion, in life or death situations such as these, it shows itself. I looked down in elation, irrationally thinking that my footprints would be right there in the ground and I'd find my way back no problem.

Again, yeah, not so much.

But, after a few moments of squinting, I could see where I had been. The leaves on the ground were a good three inches think, and it had been too cold for any one to go out in the woods for awhile, so before I'd gone stumbling around it had been more or less smooth. So I could see my footprints through that. And I was a rather terrible hiker, and so I made a terrible mess of the trees as I went, breaking branches and damaging plants wherever I'd been.

It was due to said unwitting damages that I got back, cold down to the point where I was sure my blood had frozen over, but not dead, at least. Truly a miracle, especially after I climbed back to my balcony. Those branches were no joke, I had no clue how Cocoa and Embry had done it all this time.

Five tights, two sweatpants, three turtlenecks, a camisole, four sweatshirts, and every pair of socks that I owned later, I had clumsily made it back down to the ground. But this time I circled the edge of the woods carefully, squinting at the leaves. On my way back it had occurred to me that Mikki had left behind the same trail that I had.

And I was right.

……………………………………….

I found Mikki about half an hour later, slumped up against a tree and crying so violently that I thought she'd make herself sick.

Yes. CRYING. I know. I was shocked too.

Shocked to the point of stopping right where I was and, instead of walking up to her and giving her one of my many articles of clothing-she definitely needed it-I yelled out, "Mikki!"

Mikki looked up, her dark skin streaked with tears. She stared at me for a second, shocked, before lurching herself up and running away.

She didn't get far. The cold had made her limbs slow and uncoordinated, and she tripped about six steps into it. She broke down again, her shoulders. shaking so hard I wondered how she could hold herself up.

I walked over to her. "Mix." I tried to keep my voice gentle.

"Get away from me." She said loudly, her voice thick with tears. She pronounced each word forcefully and clearly and with so much venom even through the tears that I had no doubt she meant it, but she didn't move, which I took to be a good sign.

I sat down next to her, rubbing my sock-wrapped hands together thoughtfully.

"When I found out about this," I began. "Embry had already told me a lot. He went into this big long speech about these tribal legends and spirit warriors." I kept my voice light and cheery, which I knew probably annoyed her. I didn't care. Just because I was rescuing her did not mean that she and I were on any better terms and we'd been beforehand.

"But I'm not doing that. I'm sure D-" I started to say Drew's name, but decided that that wouldn't be the best thing for Mikki's heart at the moment. The cold combined with the shock of discovering a new species had probably taken a tole on it, and throwing it another fast one might stop it all together. "You'll find that out soon enough." I amended my statement. "I'll just say it straight real quick, before you die out here.

'There are roughly twenty werewolves in La Push. They are all super big and super muscled and they all hang out with each other or old people or gorgeous pale people or women at whom they look at like a blind man seeing the sun for the first time. That would be how you recognize them. They aren't dangerous, they are here 'cause humans are stupid and need protection from vampires." I smiled a little as I listened to Mikki's sharp inhalation of breath.

"Yeah, there are vampires. They live all over. Most of them are bloodthirsty demons who will kill you. But there is a group of them by the name of Cullen that we are friends with. They are awesome and live in Canada. The vampires are the beautiful pale people I talked about earlier.

"Werewolves do this thing called imprinting . It's like love at first sight. They phase when they get angry, and in their wolf form they can hear each other's thoughts. Don't ever tell anyone, because if you do vampires will track you down and kill you."

I paused and let this information sink in.

"All righty then You ready to go home?"

Mikki remained motionless for a while. The she cleared her throat.

"Cat, I was wrong about you. You haven't started fitting in with the crowd. You're an even bigger whackjob than I remember."

I beamed. It didn't make me like her any more. But it was nice to hear I hadn't lost my touch, just the same.

Embry's POV

"Mom?" I said it like a question. It_ said _it was her on the caller id, but…we didn't talk much, to say the least.

"Hey, Embry."

Sophi, my mother, said the words warmly. But she sounded regretful some how. Like the way I think she would have talked to me if I'd grown up and become a crack head like Mikki. And homeless and jobless. To hear her tell it, she'd failed miserably as a parent. Oh, boo hoo, my son is sharing a house with three childhood friends while he's building his own. Worse, he got a soccer scholarship to college and has a well paying job!

Seriously though, what did she want from me? Like I had a choice on the whole sneaking-out thing. It was either that or become werewolf indoors and accidentally kill her. Not to mention abandoning the protection of God knew how many people.

Such a drama queen, my mother.

"I was wondering if you'd come see me this Thursday."Again, her voice was cheerful. But under it was wistful. I felt a pang of guilt. You know, among all the exasperation and annoyance.

"You could bring Cathryn," She went on.

Sophi, though we didn't talk much, knew exactly how I felt about Cathryn. She knew as surely as I did that she was her future daughter in law. In fact, I was pretty sure that she thought I'd snuck out all those times to see Cat. She'd met her. Despite the feelings you'd think the two of them had for each other, stealing a son away on one hand, the-duh, duh, DAH!- _Mother In Law_ on the other, they got along pretty well. Sophi probably wanted Cathryn there to smoothe over some of the awkwardness.

"You still there?" Sophi asked.

"Oh. Uh…yeah." It was kind of stupid, her calling it Thursday as opposed to Tomorrow, which was when Thursday was. It was also two days before Christmas Eve. I was planning on spending Christmas with the packs, and Cathryn as much as I could, but seeing my actual family around then might be good too. "Yeah. What time?"


	12. Chapter 12

**Author's note: hey Everyones! This is the third book in a series, the first two are Waking Up and Angels and vampires and you can find them on my profile so READ THEM and reveiw!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OR you could just skip them and read this one, because I guess its not strictly nesicarry. Whichever. **

**TO PEOPLE WHO REVEIW: YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY! You are wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. Even if you wrote that you hated it. You get a lifetime supply of COOOOOOKIES!**

**TO PEOPLE WHO DONT REVEIE: You break my heart. See look, there's a tear.**

Cathryn's POV

House Day.

That was what I was calling it. A very fitting name, in my opinion.

The reason being that it revolved around _houses._

We would start said lovely day by driving up to Canada with Nessie to have a look at her new house. The Cullens had finally decided that they'd been in Forks too long and had moved roughly two hours away-they couldn't move too far because of Jacob-to Canada. Renessmee had yet to see her new home on account of going to college at Washington State with me. But this Saturday, a week before school let out for Christmas, she'd get to see it. And I was the lucky one getting to see it with her.

Not.

It wasn't necessarily as if I didn't want to see it with her. I just didn't want to see it with her when I had _other things to do. _I mean, college was no joke. You can't just breeze right by it like you do high school. I had to actually pay attention. And do my homework and study in places other than the previous class. And, as it turns out, homework and studying take up a lot of free time.

And I had to dance. I was assistant teaching classes on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays at the ballet school in Seattle, so those days, from three to seven, were taken up. And, okay, so it wasn't so bad. It turned out, I worked quite brilliantly with kids. Claire, of course, wasn't nearly as surprised as I had been coming to terms with this little piece of information. Apparently, back in the day when she was too young to stay at home by herself, I'd been brilliant.

She was eleven now. They grow up so fast. Sniff, sniff.

Anyways, I loved the kid thing so much that I had decided to go for a degree in Education. I was going to become an art teacher. And a dance instructor in the afternoons and summers. My three favorite things, dancing and art and kids, all rolled up together.

Well, three of my four favorite things. My number one favorite thing-or person-fit into an entirely different category. Embry's Cathryn time had gotten severely diminished since I'd headed off to college. So severely, in fact, that I had to sneak out of my sorority at night, after curfew, to see him at all.

So, you see, I was rather crushed for time during the week, and I really do not see how it was such a huge deal for me to want to kick it on the weekends. Especially since it was the last weekend I had before the holidays, and I hadn't even started my Christmas shopping list.

But I guess it was.

Visiting the Cullens wasn't even the only thing I had to do! That afternoon I would have to go straight from Canada to La Push. Embry had saved up enough for a house, and was getting it built. And I, being his imprint, was going to have to live in said house for the foreseeable future once we got married. So Embry had invited me over to the place while it was still a work in progress to make sure he wasn't letting the construction workers create something monstrous.

And then, after that, I would arrive, weary and sore, to my sorority, Kappa Kappa Gamma, and be greeted by the new sorority member. I can understand how you would not see the huge deal in this. I mean, sorority houses usually housed like fifty girls, right? If you don't like one, it should be fairly easy to stay away from them.

Ha! I wish.

I was only in my first semester in college, my first semester at the house, and I'd made more enemies than I could count. Turns out, nonstop sarcasm, smart remarks, thoughtlessness, irresponsibility and constant daydreaming can get under the skin of some people.

Who ever would have guessed?

Fortunately I had Nessie, Keilly, and Leslie on my side and, with their help, had made enough friends to just outshine the enemies. People who saw the spunky, loyal, and brave side of me. After all, not all people were humorless bores.

Just most of them.

"This feels so weird," Nessie murmured, stepping over the threshold and into her new home. Or rather, her families new home. Nessie wasn't actually going to do much living in it, seeing as she was in college now and once she and Jacob got hitched she'd be living with him in Lap Push.

Nessie didn't actually know about that last part thought. Jakey was taking his sweet time.

"I like it!" I lied.

Nessie pressed her hand to my forhead, as if she were feeling for a fever. I felt my eyes haze out. I saw the old Cullen entrance in my head, light colors and glass back and all.

This one was different.

Oh, sure, there were similar aspects. They were both was out in the woods, where no human would ever end up. Where they had their privacy. They were both big, both nice, both expensive.

But that, as far as similarities, was where it ended.

This place was long, spacious on the outside. Only two stories high, but the foundation took up so much space that it made up for it. And this one wasn't white. On the outside or the inside. It was oak, woodsy, through and through. Like a lodge in Colorado or something. And this one wasn't spacey. The rooms were smaller, and the house itself was like a maze, al hallways and doors. The colors were dark, the few things that weren't constructed of some sort of wood were bold, heavy colors like green and read and purple.

And when I said I liked it, t wasn't technically a lie. I did like it. Loved it, even. That afternoon I fully planned to talk whoever was making Embry and My house into making our house as much like it as possible. It just didn't feel Cullen-y to me. This was not the home of a coven of vampires.

The others, however, seemed to disagree.

"Nessie, Cat!" Esme cried, smiling hugely and taking us both into tight hugs in her cold hard arms. "We've missed you!"

Once I'd gotten my breath back, I looked over her shoulder at Bella and Edward. Both of whom had their eyes fixed on their daughter. Had they been capable of it, I'm sure they would have cried.

Nessie did get misty-eyed. "Momma!" She whispered, stepping away from Esme and into two more sets of ready arms. Her parents smiled hugely and kissed the top of her head-well, Edward did. Bella actually kissed her jaw on account of Nessie being like five inches taller than her now. She took after her father, height wise-and pressed her hands to their faces, eager to give out images of the past couple of months.

Alice rolled her eyes at me. "Parents." She said scornfully.

I laughed and walked eagerly to her and Jasper. I'd missed them the most.

"How've you guys been?" I asked.

"Eh." Alice shrugged. "Bored. I never thought I'd say this, but I actually miss the werewolves!"

"More the imprints, I think." Jasper said.

"True." Alice amended. "I can only give Rosalie so many make oers. Bella, of course, won't let me. I miss my girls!" She wiped away a fake-tear.

"I'm sure you'll live." I told her.

"I guess." Alice sighed doubtfully.

She looked so sad, so small there, leaning against Jasper as if he were the only thing holding her up. Her little shoulders slumped as if she were carrying on them the world. I almost felt sorry for her.

Almost. Thankfully, I caught the wink Jasper sent me before it was too late.

"Oh, no, Alice!" I cried, dancing away from her, towards Emmett. "You are not giving me a make over. You can't."

"Oh, Please, Kitty?" Alice pleaded, throwing caution to the wind. "I've been so lone;ly here with only guys, and mommies to keep me company-"

Rosalie cleared her throat pointedly.

"Oh, all right, and a mommy wannabe, but you get my point. I need girl time. _Desperately."_ She took my shoulders and gave them a little shake, proving her point.

I wasn't swayed. I swear. Not even a little bit. I fully intended to go outside with Rosalie to check out their cars for the rest of the morning. I didn't care a lick if Alice got mad at me. Or was scarred for the rest of her existence, or whatever. She was like I spoiled child, I swear. Got everything she wanted.

But when Ness came up behind me and put her hand on my back, sending images of little dollar signs dancing through my head, well….

I started seeing things Alice's way.

Chapter 2

Embry's POV

When Cathryn pulled up to the almost-but-not-quite-house, I could tell right away that something was up. Not in her mind. But physically. She looked different.

She opened the door. "Hey, Cat." I greeted her. "Did you…get your hair dyed or something?"

Cathryn looked horrified. "No!" She squeaked, her voice an octive too high. "I DID NOT get my hair dyed?" She ducked back into her car and turned down the dashboard window, checking her reflection carefully. "Does it look that bad?"

"No!" I said quickly, backtracking. "Er…what DID you do?"

"Not _me._" Cathryn muttered scornfully, getting back out of the car. "Alice. Look what she did to my hair!"

She turned around, exposing the mountain of pinned up auburn ringlets sitting on her head. It looked good. It reminded me of her hair the day Rachel and Paul tied the knot.

"Oh." I said sarcastically. "Yeah. Awful."

"It is!" Cathryn insisted, walking around me and sticking out her hand to Mr. Marshal, the architect. "Hiya. Lady of the house, here."

I ducked my head to hide a satisfied grin. I loved the way she said that, sure but casual at the same time, like we were already engaged. The same way I felt. A few months ago she _never _would have said that.

"Hey." Mr. Marshal replied, taking her small hand in his large-compared to hers, not mine-one and shaking, his brow furrowed in confusion. I could understand his bewilderment. She looked so _young._

Even younger than she actually was. Because it turned out that imprints did not age. Us wolves felt like pretty big idiots when we discovered this, seeing as we had had centuries and centuries to notice and never had. We'd just assumed that our imprints were still aging, so we stopped phasing so that we could grow old with them. And we started aging, so did our imprints. In our defense, however, this was the first time we had ever had a coven of vampires breathing down one of the imprint's neck. They and Jacob had freaked out rather considerably when Nessie stopped aging sooner than intended. A sixteen rather than eighteen. So they did some sniffing around, and discovered that Kim was around the same age, physically. Though she was supposed to be twenty-six, she had the body of a mid-teen. Same with Emily. And Rachel.

It took the lot of us awhile before we got it. Before we understood that imprints were so thoroughly, so completely connected to their wolf that they stopped aging at the exact same age their wolf had.

Which explained why Emily's tummy had showed no signs of stretch marks when she had Nate, no wrinkles on her face from sleepless nights, no laugh lines. She wouldn't have had many, she was only thirty after all, but those ten or so extra years were obviously not there even from a human's perspective.

Cathryn was thrilled when I told her. Every woman's dream, to never get old. At least, that's how the imprints were looking at it. Us wolves, however, were still a little skeptical. But we didn't think about it too much. When it came to our imprints, everything freaked us out. Even the good stuff.

Anyways. It made sense for Mr. Marshal to be unsettled. It wasn't every day you saw a girl that looked sixteen and a guy that looked twenty-five getting ready to buy a house together.

He handled it well though, I thought.

"Embry said you were here to observe, mostly. You know, get the feel of the place. Make sure-"

"That you weren't screwing it up?" Cathryn interrupted.

Mr. Marshal blinked, affronted. I chuckled to myself. Though she had had this effect on people more times than I could count, it never got old. "Well-not exactly-I wouldn't-" He stammered.

"Yeah." Cathryn patted him briskly on the shoulder. "Whatevs."

She walked past him and up the drive way to the house. Obviously, it was still a work in progress. They had the bottom part, the foundation, completely done, as well as the front and back porch. Other than that, though, it was all just a bunch of thick, wooden beams. The building's skeleton, I guess you could call it. It wasn't much, and I was fully prepared for Cathryn to be brutal.

But I was wrong. She surprised me. As per usual.

"Eeeeeep!" She squealed, turning and running back to me, jumping into my arms. I caught her in midair, laughing. "I love it!" She whispered in my ear. "Or at least," She pulled back and looked from me to Mr. Marshall curiously. "I think I love it. Its not really clear yet…."

"Yeah." I snorted and swung her around onto my back, where she promptly climbed onto my shoulders. "That's kind of why you're here."

"See, Mr. Call and I were thinking it'd be stone and brick on the outside, and oak on the inside." Mr. Marshall started to explain.

"Oak floors or oak walls?" Cathryn interrupted.

"We have no idea." I told her. "He won't be living here and I don't care. So…"

"Hmmm." Cat rested her elbows on top of my head. " Think that it should have, like, oak outlines. Like the corners and the top and bottom of the walls, and any structures…you know what I'm talking about, Mr. M?"

Mr Marshal tilted his head up to look at her better. "Oak paneling?"

"Yeah!" I could feel her nod her head enthusiastically.

"So what about the walls and floors?" I wondered.

"Painted walls…dark colors? Like a sort of cranberry red…you know. Warm. Cause its always so dark and cold here. Are you okay with that, Em?"

"Sure, sure." I borrowed Jacob's saying.

"And then hardwood floors? But not oak. Something else."

"All right." Mr. Marshal jotted all this down before leading us up the steps and into the house. As I stepped over the threshold, Cathryn grabbed hold of one of the beams and let me walk out from under her, so that she was just dangling there. She swung around experimentally, kicking her feet.

"I," She declared, "Like this."

I smiled huge. "Good."

"Hey." She said, swinging her legs up and over so that she was sitting on top of the beam as opposed to hanging from it. My heart irrationally skipped a beat. The house was only going to be one floor with a basement, so the beam wasn't high, but that didn't make it any easier for me to let her do that without running around under her with a net. "What's that?" She pointed to a structure to our left.

"That's going to be the kitchen countertop." Mr. Marshal sounded proud. "You know those that have chair along one side so you can use it as a table, and a washing machine or an oven on the other?"

"Yeah."

"That. Only Its going to have beams on either side, going to the ceiling and then over until they meet. It'll create a little window as well as a sort of wall separating the kitchen from the living room."

"Okay." Cat said cheerfully. "Hey, can the kitchen floors be tile instead of hardwood like everything else?"

"Sure." I answered for him.

We walked through the rest of the house, Mr. Marshal explaining and Cat or I occasionally commenting on what we wanted the color or flooring to be. Well, Mr. Marshal and I walked. Cathryn balanced precariously on beams, crawling and walking and swinging on them like a jungle gym. She was seriously beginning to stress me out.

Which was why, as soon as Cathryn had left, off to her sorority where she'd meet yet another sister, I turned to Mr. Marshal and made absolutely clear that if he put a skylight or dorm windows or a balcony or anything else Cat could ever use to get on the roof, he was fired. I was not spending the rest of our too-long-but-not-nearly-long-enough existences together freaking out about Cathryn falling off something and killing herself.

Chapter 3

Cathryn's POV

"Hello?" I flipped open my cell. "Mom?"

"Hey, sweetie. Have you found out about your new sorority sister yet?" Her voice bubbled over in excitement.

I took my time answering, stopping at a red light-obeying the traffic laws for once-and switching radio stations a few times. "No. The others know by now, but I was…busy."

__

Busy.

But it wasn't like I could tell them that. So our arguments about him usually ended up going stalemate. And staying that way.

"Well get there!" Mom said, either not noticing or ignoring my resentful tone. "You'll be so surprised…well, just get there. And call me when you find out!"

"Sure. Love you."

"Love you too!"

I hung up and entered the campus, slowing Jewel to a smooth crawl. Now that I knew my parents knew…. Well, obviously I'd changed a lot lately, and there were too many aspects of my life and personality that they weren't aware of for them to be able to accurately judge what I would and would not like.

Unfortunately though, I couldn't dawdle forever. And my sisters were only too happy for me to shorten the process for me even further.

"KIT-KAT!" Becca screamed, throwing open the door before I had even parked.

"Hey, Bex."I said unenthusiastically once out of the car.

I know that I give the impression of not liking Becca. That is not the case. I do. Really. Its just that she got here on a cheerleading scholarship. And she has the pep-filled personality to go with it. And I find that kind of…tiring. So I have to take her in small doses. When I'm well rested. And in a good mood.

And right now was none of the above.

"Omigod your going to FREAK when you find out who it is! Seriously. Your mom recommended her. You'll be so exited. Cat-"

And that was about where I tuned out. Instead of listening, I took deep breaths through my nose and focused on the smell of the rain I had come to love. Or tolerate, at least. I turned the knob to our front door and stepped inside, wondering ildly-

"Ah!" I screamed, jumping back. "You!"

I felt my lip curl angrily at the word. Can you believe, that after all this time, my parents still haven't accepted Embry? Even though they've known about us dating for a year now? And its obvious he loves me? They were so against it that I actually had to lie about it sometimes when I went to see him. Apparently I was too young to be seeing somebody seriously and should take my time and fall in love with just the right guy and all that crap. What they didn't realize was that all their parently wisdom went out the window anyway where Embry was concerned, because he wasn't even human. 


	13. Chapter 13

Cathryn's POV

Embry told me about what had happened between Nessie and Jacob on Thursday morning through text. He told me about dinner with his mom in the same text. Like both of things were just totally usual, the everyday, **Morning. Miss u.** That I usually got from him around that time.

But let me tell you, that was no where near usual. Renesmee and Jacob were constant. They were always together, always backing each other. Always looking at each other like the other was the gift from the gods when they thought that the other wasn't looking. They were so meant for each other that they made peanut butter and jelly clash.

Of course it would be _my_ sister who ruined it all.

But that wasn't even on the wavelength of my thoughts when I read that text. I was worried about Nessie. I knew that Embry would be in steady touch with Jacob to make sure he didn't shoot himself or something, but Nessie had no one. Oh sure, there was her famly, who I'm sure knew all about it, what with Edward's mind reading thing. But I highly doubted that it had crossed Jake's mind to go over there and let Edward poke around in his head to make sure he wasn't truly cheating.

Or maybe they did know. Heck, how was I supposed to know how smart they were? It didn't matter. They were Renesmee's family. She was pubescent. Right now, she was about as likely to listen to them as she was to try out for American Idol. She needed her only friend that knew about the way she'd really felt there,telling her the truth, or she'd never see it.

And, okay, there was a small part of me that just kind of wanted the details on that whole little drama. But still, I was pretty concerned. You know, as concerned as I could get.

So I left the house, yelling over myh shoulder that I'd be gone past lunch and them again for supper without bothering to give her an explanation. I didn't owe her one. I was a legal adult. If it came down to it, I could move in with Jake and Quil and Embry.

Or just Quil and Embry, if Jacob ended up killing himself.

When I got there, it was Cocoa who answered the door.

"She's in her room by herself. Fifth door on the right. Good luck getting her to stop crying." She snorted, rolling her eyes. "Bella and Edward are about to go mad. Why they care so much I have no idea."

"So sensitive." I couldn't help grinning a little though, even as I chastised her.

A grin that stayed on my face until I went inside her room.

Cocoa, to her credit, did not normally lie to phyche me out. She did plenty of other awful stuff, sure, but I guess she knew me well enough to know that I didn't buy lies easily. But when I opened the door to Renesmee's room, I was no where near prepared for what I saw.

She was slumped against the bed. Not on it. Against it. Her hair fell in oily and stringy waves over her face, like she hadn't washed it in days. The hair made it hard for me to see her face, but I did. It was beet read and splotchy. And, as Cocoa had warned, she was crying. Though I'd say that that was an understatement. The front of her shirt was soaked with tears that had been shed in such quantity that I was surprised that trenches hadn't formed down her cheeks from the erosion of it all. The sobs were loud, ragged, so I could easily hear the way she gasped for air, like she couldn't even breathe without him.

Tears pricked at my eyes. I'm serious. It made _me _cry, she looked so bad.

I walked over slowly and put my hand on her shoulder. She didn't look up. "Jacob?" I said gently.

In just that one word, her sobs rose to wails, rocking her whole body. I winced. Saying his name probably hadn't been the best thing to do just then.

There was nothing I could do, I could see that already. But it felt wrong, leaving her like that. Like abandonment. If Embry had left me, I'd have wanted some one to be there. Even if there was nothing they could do. So I sat down next to her and put my arms around her, letting the tight ball she was curled up in loosen a little as she choked on her own tears.

Embry's POV

Something was wrong. I could tell it as soon as I pulled up to her house. For one thing, she wasn't in it. She was outside it. I could hear her voice and smell her scent. She smelled wrong, changed by adrenaline that was for some reason very pungent in her blood. She was mingled with some one else, a man. His voice was gravelly and unfeeling, his blood ran thick with alcohol. He smelled like cigarette smoke.

"What's up?" Cathryn wondered at my discomfort.

I didn't answer. I just got out, circling around and pulling her out before she got a change to do it herself, ignoring her protests. I walked in front of her around back, where I could hear them. I glanced at the house as I past it. It was exactly the same as I remembered it. Same overgrown yard, same pale blue paint, same small frame. But it was different to me now. It seemed empty.

When I got around back, I saw them. My mom was pressed against the wood wall, her long lanky frame hunched over with stress. All the energy had gone out of it. Which surprised me. Despite the fact that her parents had kicked her out when she was seventeen for getting pregnant with me, and the fact that she'd had to buy a shop using her money for college and raise me and do everything else all by herself, Sophi had always been an easy, happy go lucky spirit. It had been me who called the electricity when they cut the power off, me who fished the bill out of the cookie jar after said phone call when it had become apparent that no, it had not been paid. I did all this while my mom got the flashlight out and crept around the house like she was breaking in or something. I learned how to cook because she couldn't so much as cook toast.

Actually, it had prepared me pretty well for a life with Cathryn.

But I couldn't see a bit of that in her now.

The man in front of her wasn't holding her there, exactly, but he wasn't making it easy for her to get out, either. He crowded her, pressing in too close. He towered over her. Even in his obvious age, both his arms and chest was burly with muscles.

"-couple of dollars." He was saying. His voice was slurred.

"Three grand isn't a couple!" Sophi's voice sounded panicked. "I don't have it!"

The man's shoulder's tensed. He somehow managed to get closer, looming above her threateningly.

It pissed me off. I took a step forward. "Get off her!" I yelled.

The man turned. And just like that. I understood. Everything. The man was Jesse Uley. I could see it in a minute. He looked just like Sam.

And just like me.

Fury ignited inside me, overflowing from my chest and flowing through my veins into my arms and legs, causing them to shake as it reached them. My mom had been a hard worker, despite her irresponsibility. She had charisma, and business had always been really good. I remembered wondering as a kid why we didn't have more, couldn't afford more.

And now I knew.

I'd been this angry once in my life. When I found out that Heath was willing to let Cathryn die.

Other than that though, nothing I had ever felt could compare to this. It rose up within me, pounding at the insides of my chest to get out.

"Embry," My mom whispered, seeing me. She hadn't noticed the look on my face.

"Embry, huh?" Jesse turned on me, his expression assessing. There was nothing drunk about him when money was on his mind. "Say, you'd be about grown yourself, wouldn't you? You care to help out your old man?" He sneered, waiting for some sort of weakness inside me. He-I couldn't believe it, but it was true-expected me to be _happy _with the scene before me.

That did it. I leaned forward. I had never before wanted this. Welcomed the wars, relished the thought of killing. Only with Heath. I felt it again now, I could taste it on my tongue. I wanted this man to suffer. I wanted him to pay for everything he'd put not just my mom and me through, but Sam's mom and Sam as well. People like this did not deserve any kind of life.

"Embry?" Suddenly Cathryn was there, her small voice calming me. I felt myself relax, just a little. Not enough to douse the fire inside me, but enough for me to be sane enough to fight it. And so I did. I faught against the tremors and ripples that cascaded over me, struggled to stop the shaking.

But I knew I wouldn't be able to for long.

"Cat." I growled. "My mom can't see this. Take her inside."

Cathryn stared at me a moment, her emerald eyes undecided.

"Please." I managed to get out through clenched teeth.

She looked at me for a moment longer.

Then she nodded.

* * *

About an hour later I walked inside. I hadn't killed him, to my credit. Only scared him, let him know what his son was. And what would happen if he ever came around here again. After that I'd run a few laps around La Push, running some of my energy off and relaying to my brothers what had happened. Everyone knew now. The mystery of who my dad was, finally solved. It was kind of a relief, actually. Though it made both Sam and I sick to know that we had such a terrible person's blood running through our veins.

I found Cathryn and Sophi on the couch, drinking coffee. They looked up at my approach. "Hey, Embry." My mother said. She had tear streaks running down her face. "I understand now."

"I hope you don't mind," Cathryn said casually, "We whatched from the kitchen window. So no more secrets."

I stared at her mutely.

The fury was back.

Cathryn's POV

Our visit with Embry's mom was cut short. Like, way short. We didn't even eat! Embry just came in in some sort of phsyco madness, found out what I'd told Sophi, and yanked me out of there. He hadn't been gentle about it, either. He'd just picked me up and shoved me in the car and drove off, speeding down the road.

I honestly didn't see why he was so pissed. She totally had a right to know. I'd never understood why she didn't. I knew for a fact that most all the other wolf-parents knew about it. And considering the crap she'd obviously been through for Embry, I didn't think it would kill him to let her in on that little secret.

Apparantly he disagreed, thought.

He didn't say a word to me. He didn't even give me crap about my lack of a seat belt! He just sat there and drove faster than I'd ever seen him drive before, his fingers flexed on the wheel, his back straight up against the seat. His body was so tensed that I could count the muscles under the exposed skin. His jaw, clenching and unclenching at regular intervals, ground his teeth together.

And again, he didn't speak.

So I turned on the radio.

He turned it off, his finger moving to the sterio with blinding speed. I jumped at the movement. After he'd flicked the switch, I expected him to go back to his creepy immobility. But he didn't. He swerved to the edge of the road so suddenly that my body was slammed against the window. He didn't even seem to care. He pulled over and stopped the car. For a few seconds he just kept staring ahead, kept his hand on the wheel. But after that he turned to look at me.

Or glare, really. If looks could kill, I would be one dead imprint.

"So…You're mad?" I guessed. Anything was better than the silence.

It was a good thing I felt that way, because that was all it took for it to end.

"Oh I am _way_ past mad, Cathryn." He snarled.

Snarled. At me. His girlfriend.

"Do you have any freaking idea how much effort I put into not letting her find out about that? How hard I worked? That secret is too important for just anybody to know about it!"

"She's not just any body she's you mother!" I yelled to make myself heard over him.

But he still ignored it, only raising his voice even louder so that it totally swallowed mine. "I told you to take her AWAY. You totally ignored me even though you _knew _what would happen, I could have killed him! My girlfriend and my mom could have seen me commit a murder!"

"But you didn't." I said it softer this time, not even bothering to be heard.

But of course he chose _now _to hear me.

"SHUT UP!" He screamed.

I lurched back. He was so loud. And big. Overpowered the whole car, I could feel the anger radiating from his body, the sound waves from his voice flying against me. I started shaking in spite of myself. Suddenly I felt very claustrophobic. And very scared. I'd never been truly afraid of Embry before. Everything I'd seen, everything I'd heard, I'd know it wouldn't touch me. He'd never be dangerous to _me._

"You can't just make decisions like that on impulse! Because you feel like creating drama, or because you're bored? Was that it, Cat? You were Bored? Just had to go making waves, didn't you? God, I don't understand you! You're so STUPID!"

I had never heard anybody yell like this before.

"Did it ever even cross you mind of what it could've done to HER? God, she was cared to death, I could tell even in a few seconds! And lord knows what Jesse'd done to her up till we got there! Give the woman a break! Things were fine without her knowing, everybody was happy! Do you _like _all the drama? Cause sometimes its like you _want _people upset! Probably makes you feel better about yourself, cause you're never happy! Too busy complaining about the harmless stuff Mikki does to you and hating your sister that you're gonna be stuck with forever but you can't bring yourself to like her anyway!"

Despite the crazy volume, I could hear his words, feel the meaning behind them. I flinched. He seriously thought of me that way?

Under any other circumstances, I would have gotten angry. But I couldn't do that know. He was too loud, too big. He sucked up any strength I would have had for that. And it was Embry. He loved me. He liked ,my sarcasm, my attitude, I thought. Had he just been lying this whole time? And was only with me because of some stupid wolfish connection we had? I didn't know. Or care, frankly,. All I could fathom was the words he said, screamed into my brain, impossible to ignore. And they hurt.

"-SELFISH!" He was saying. Hmm, selfish. I'd add that to his list of things he didn't like about me. "You don't care about anyone else, nothing about them! The world isn't there for your personal entertainment! It may never have occurred to you, but there are worse things in the world than having a roommate and a stepsister and a boyfriend that keeps secrets from his mother! WHY CAN'T YOU JUST LEAVE IT ALONE FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE!!"

"Stop." I whispered. I'd meant for the words to come out strong, forceful, but they broke on the way out of my mouth. I couldn't help it. He was so scary, so mean, so _loud._ For the first time in my life, I hated noise. He made me hate noise.

And I loved him.

He did, to his credit, stop. He stopped talking altogether and went back to his previous immobile state. He stayed like that the whole way to my house. While I turned my face to the passenger window and tried not to let him hear me cry.

**Hello everybody!!! Are you suprised??? Mad at Embry? Disagree with my opinion of who his father is? REVEIW and tell me about all your inner turmoil that this chapter has caused.**

** Guess what? I have REQUESTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!**

**And though I know that smart little voice in your head is telling you to stop reading, stop reading RIGHT NOW, I don't want you to do that. **

**Okay: There is this fanfic out called The One by alleycat97. It really good, its about Jacob and Nessie's kids and who they imprint on. Read it. Like I said, its really good. Also, I have a Harry Potter fanfic out that has no reveiws and is making me very sad because I'm working super hard on it and its eating away at my self esteem, bit by unread and ignored bit. So read that too. And then you need to reveiw both of them, because if you don't reveiw then the writer doesn't even know you read the stupid thing and she'll feel all said and untalented and she will be in deep emotional pain and it will be ALL YOUR FAULT.**

**Just something to think about.**


	14. Chapter 14

Embry's POV

I went to the Cullens. Don't ask me why, I just did. I hadn't even realized I knew the way to their new place. I'd only been there like once or twice. It was a good thing I did though, or my life could have turned out very differently than it did.

Despite its unfamiliarity, I opened the door without waiting to be let in. I wasn't in the mood for pleasantries. I just wanted voices. Lots of voices. And chaos. I didn't want to have to think. I didn't want to have to remember the way I'd acted to Cathryn. I didn't want to remember the way she'd cringed away from me, what I'd called her.

Crap. I'd made her cry.

And that was why I went to the Cullens. I knew it would be madness there. They'd all be so distraught over the whole Nessie/Jakle issue that I wouldn't have to think about my own hardly at all. Of course I would eventually, I knew that. I'd probably make it to tomorrow, tops, before my wanting for her escalated to the point of pain and I'd have to see her anyway. But I wanted to prolong it, if just for a little while., Just long enough to get my head on straight.

Ha. As if. I'm a werewolf, we're all insane.

To my surprise, I came in to complete silence. I walked in to the living room to find Edward, Esme, Alice, Jasper, Rosalie, Emmett, Bella, Cocoa, and Heath all there. Alice seemed to be the center. Her eyes were unfocused and she was being still in that way that only a vampire can.

I waited impatiently for the vision to end.

After a moment, she blinked, shaking her head. "Oh, God." She whispered. She looked horrified.

"What?" Jasper asked.

"They…" She put her head in her hands. "The Volturi…they're going to try again."

This had no effect on me. Don't ask me why, I know I should have totally freaked out. But I didn't. All I felt was that same drive for distractions. And this was providing one.

"How? When?"

Alice looked up at me. "I didn't know until…well, they have a vampire friend.. she won't be coming, I don't think…."

"Who?" Edward asked urgently.

"The werewolves. The Children of the moon. They're coming for you, Embry." Alice kept her eyes on me. "They want a war. To total obliviation. Only one species will remain in the end. The Volturi know we'll defend you. They know that if you loose…so do we."

I stared at her mutely. The drive was fading.

Because it had finally occurred to me to get a little scared.

Cathryn's POV

I have a happy making ritual. Stupid, I know, but I do. I think everybody does, to some extent. Just a little something to improve your mood, lighten your spirits after and aweful day. And this may have been the worst day of my life. Well, you know. Except for the day my dad died. But other than that.

So as soon as Embry dropped me off I preformed it.

I went straight to the bathroom and opened all of my drawers, contemplating. Carefully, I selected a facial cleanser, a facial mask, vanilla sugar body scrub, orange blossom lotion, and a deep-in conditioner. I turned the water on as hot as it would go, letting the steam fill up the room, fogging up the mirror before getting in. I stayed in there a long time, carefully scrubbing, rinsing and moistureizing ever square inch of me before giving up and just lying down there, letting the hot water rain down on top of me. I couldn't seem to get the icky feeling off of me. No matter what I did, every time I blinked I saw faces.

Nessie's heartbroken.

Sophi's terrified.

Embry's infuriated.

Finally, when I'd looked down and seen that my skin had gone tomato red from the heat of it all, I got out and turned it off. I flipped my head upside down and slowly massaged a towel through my hair. While I waited for my hair to stop dripping, I brushed my teeth. And applied mascara, much more of it and much more carefully than usual. Then, just because it seemed like the thing to do, what with all my self-pampering, I dipped my thumb into a small container of glitter that I'd used maybe twice in my life and smeared it across both of my eyelids.

When my hair could no longer be called soaking, I filled my palm full of mousse and flipped my hair over again, massaging it through the strands. When I was done, I looked in the mirror. Except for my having nothing on, I looked really pretty. My hair fell in loose curls down my back, my eyes looked bigger than usual and seemed to sparkle on their own as opposed to with make up, like I knew some sort of delightful secret that glowed inside me.

Then I went to my closet.

Once I was dressed, I had on pair of washed out jeans that had been professionally torn in two places, a loose white lace tank top with three buttons going down from the collar, and a blue and silver wool hoodie that had little puff balls at the end of the laces.

Normally, this worked. Normally if I could just examine myself in the mirror instead of my usual absentminded glance and think to myself, _hmm, not bad, _my mood improved, if not by the smallest margin. But it didn't today. Today, I looked in it and wondered if Embry would hate me less if he saw me like this.

Probably not.

Disgusted, I went out on to my balcony and, ignoring the chair, sat down on the concrete and hugged my legs, leaning against the glass. It had been snowing, and looking out into the woods at the blanket of white bellow and the sprinkling of whit on top of the trees I felt like I was in a Christmas card.

It was not a good feeling.

It was such a bad one that I found myself wishing that Cocoa was still human and lived on my balcony. She, annoying as she was, would never have let me mope like this. She'd have taken me down to starbucks in a stained t-shirt and mussed hair and made me try a frappichino that was actually every different kind mixed up and when it went up my nose or something she'd laugh hysterically. Cocoa had had the worst laugh in the human life. She'd sounded like a frog and a donkey mixed together. But it sounded so stupid that it made _you _laugh.

Of course now, I doubted even that could have made me laugh. The same thoughts wouldn't leave my head and, even though they were so old I had them memorized, I could never answer the questions they posed.

Thankfully, I didn't have to for long.

"-Keilly's house for the night." Embry was saying. I perked up in spite of myself. He was here? "It's just a couple girls for now, but tomorrow we'll all be over there. I promise I'll have her back in time for anything you were planning."

I went through my bed room and into the hall so I could hear better.

Bob's arms were crossed over his chest as he scowled up at the hulking figure in front of him. "Are you aware that tomorrow is Christmas Eve, son?" He asked.

Embry nodded. "I know, I'm sorry Cathryn never got around to telling you. But it's really important to Keilly that Cathryn be there."

There was no party. I knew that in a heartbeat. There was some other weird reason why Embry wanted me out of the house for the night and the following day. I had not forgiven him for what he'd said to me, and I had no intention of speaking to him, but in the past his reasons had always been illigimate ones.

"Yeah, Bob." I agreed, tripping lightly down the stairs like a little kid before Christmas and not the mature adult that I was-or was supposed to be. "I'm sure I told you about it, anyways. Time to go to the doctor, old man." I patted him playfully on the shoulder as I squeezed myself around him and out next to Embry. "Bye!"

Embry, getting the message, shut the door in his face before we could hear any more protests.

"All right, mister." I said, turning smartly to face him. "What happened that is so urgent that you dare to show yourself around here after what you said to me this morning?"

This was a perfectly constructed sentence on my part. Seriously. Reread it. It had the perfect opening for him to go in and rain kissed down upon my upturned face, apologizing profusely for his rash and cruel actions and going on and on about how wonderful I was and how he couldn't live without me and how he didn't see how I could ever forgive him, but if I could find it in my heart to do that he'd spend every day for the rest of our lives trying to make it up to me.

But of course he did no such thing.

"The children of the moon are here." He said shortly, turning around and striding quickly back to his truck without so much as doing a doule-take at my beautiful appearance. "I told you about them, right? The original werewolves? They want a war against species. We don't know how to defeat them, we don't know how many there are, but we do know that that Volturi sent them and probably gave them a boatload of information about us, so if they get a chance the first thing they'll do is try to find the imprints and destroy them."

I stared at his retreating back.

He must have noticed, because he turned around. "What?" He asked. He didn't demand it. His tone was totally different from the harsh, businesslike one he'd used only seconds before. It was sweet now, concerned. The way he normally talked to me. Like nothing had changed.

Which was why, instead of ducking my head and following him as I normally would have done, frightened by this new, black Embry, I crossed my arms and stuck out my right leg. "Are you kidding me?" I demanded, mustering up the energy it took to sound sarcastic and disgusted and altogether unphased by the afternoon's occurances.

Embry sighed and ran a hand through his already mussed hair. "No. Cathryn,. Come with me."

I didn't move. "Where?"

"The Cullen's old house. Heath and Esme and Drew and Josh-"

"Josh?" I inquired.

"Yeah," He said impatiently. "You don't know him. They'll be watching out for you and the rest of the imprints."

……………………………………………..

When I looked around, I saw tears. Everywhere. There wasn't a dry-eyed imprint in the room. Every one of them had thrown their arms around their werewolf and was sobbing into his chest or stomach, depending on the height of the werewolf and the height of the imprint in question, and was currently pleading with them not to go. Every. Single. One. Even Claire, who wasn't supposed to know that she loved Quil yet. And Nessie, who was still, I was sure, upset with Jacob. She seemed to have forgotten about it for the time being.

All except for me.

I would obey when he told me to leave. I would sit there and listen as he screamed his guts out at me for doing it wrong. I would be afraid of him. I would cry. I would take an hour long shower and let every ounce of vanity in me manifest until I was no better than Rosalie. Despite all that, when he told me some wild story about werewolves and my life being in danger, I would believe him.

But I would not, under any circumstances, loose my composure in front of Embry now. Not unless he did. And that, by definition, entailed him crying as well. Something that looked entirely unlikely, seeing as his eyes were completely dry as I glared stubbornly into them.

We'd been standing like this, one in front of the other, staring un-adoringly into each other's eyes, for the past ten minutes while the many lovers around us said heartfelt good-byes. They were starting to leave now. One by one, the wolves would distangle themselves from their imprints and reluctantly leave their imprints wailing, some of their eyes no drier than their girlfriends.

But Embry didn't move.

Finally, he put a finger to my temple and drew it down, tracing my jawline. "Love you, Cat." He whispered.

I didn't doubt the words. He meant them. I could see it in his eyes. I felt the way his finger trembled on its way down my cheek, saw the way he leaned towards me almost involitarily, like he had no choice, just needed me now. I wasn't stupid. I also knew that he was trying to apologize for earlier. That he knew he'd been mean and irrational. And he felt bad. I'd forgive him, too. Eventually. I mean, it wasn't like he'd hit me or anything. He'd had a rough day, I had been my usual disorientingly wrong self, and he'd lost it. Okay. That was going to happen. It happened with Bob and Cassie, it had happened with her and my father, it happened with fifty year old couples in Jamaica. I'd get over myself.

But, like I said before, eventually. When he gave me a full-fledged apology. Until then, I remained pissed.

So I said the thing that I knew would hurt him most.

I raised an eye brow skeptically. "Do you?" I wondered aloud.

It had the desired effect. He drew back sharply, like I'd slapped, him, surprise and hurt in his dark eyes.

He opened his mouth to speak.

"Embry!" Jacob said. "Come _on_!" I could hear the injuction in his words.

And so, with a final longing glance over his shoulder, he was gone.

**Please reveiw, you guys? ? Come on. The button's _right there......._**


	15. Chapter 15

Embry's POV

I could smell them before I could see them. And no, that wasn't because of my hyped up doggy senses. I would have even human. It was disgusting. They smelled like BO and rotten eggs and blood. Obviously, these werewolves had more trouble with hygene than we did.

A theory that was proven correct when they were close enough to see. They weren't quite as big as ourselves, but large just the same. But they were skinny and mangy and their movements were savage and wild. I glanced up at the sky. Full moon. That explained it. They had hairless patches on their skin where they already had wounds. Fighting amongst themselves, I guess. Edward had said that they were few and far between, and so were nomadic. After doing that for a certain amount of time, I could see how one would forget the ability to play well with others.

Not so threatening, right?

Wrong.

They were rumored to be nearly extinct and, I guess if that was all in the whole world then they were. But they still outnumbered both packs and the Cullens a good two to one. They saw it, too. They crouched down eagerly, yellow eyes half crazed with bloodlust.

But Jacob and Sam and Jasper were not about to let them have the advantage.

So we attacked first.

Cathryn's POV

"Cathryn," I looked up from my hands, which had been deliberately placed in the center of my lap, into the black eyes of Mikki.

"Gah!" I jumped. "What the hell are you doing here?"

I looked around me at the other girls. None of them looked particularly surprised by Mikki's presence. How annoying. I hated being out of the loop. But then, none of them looked amused by my outburst either, and under normal terms they'd have found that hilarious. So maybe they were all just numbed.

Mikki rolled her eyes. "Did you not notice my absence earlier?"

"Uh…sure." I lied. "I just didn't think you'd be here.

I hadn't actually. Weird, you would have thought, what with all the pain and irritation she'd caused me lately that I would have immediately realized the general absence of negitive energy. But then, I'd been a whirl of negative energy myself at the time, so it was probably just balancing things out.

"Well, I was."

She had bags under her red eyes, which were rolling around in her skull jerkily. Her hands were trembling just slightly. I felt my brow furrow. Mikki never used to be this hyper.

"What's up with you?" I demamded.

Mikki sighed and looked down. "I…I need a hit." She mumbled, ashamed.

As she should have been.

But I stifled my anger, not up for another fight. "You didn't bring any?" I worked to keep my voice steady.

"No, I did." She admitted, her eyes straying to a lump in her pocket. "But I don't know what'll…how long I'll be here. I'm trying to save it."

I did not have the patience needed here to discuss her crack rations.

"What do you mean, you don't know?" I changed the subject.

"Exactly what she says." Kim looked up. She looked…odd. Hollow, some how. "None of us do, Cat. This could last for days and end with twenty funerals."

Her voice cracked on the word _funerals. _"No it won't." I looked at her strangely, wondering why she thought that. "The wolves had had battles before, you guys told me about them. None of them have ever been fatal."

"Cathryn." Emily glared at me. I felt a spark of irritation. Hmm, my temper was short today. But then, she was looking at me so…condesendingly. Like I was a complete dunderhead or something. I mean, I'll be the first to admit that I'm not the brightest lightbulb in the ceiling, but I didn't deserve looks like _that._ "This is a whole new species. I know Embry told you what happened when we first discovered vampires. We knew nothing about them and it took like four wolves to win against one leech. And we don't know how many there are, and the chances of Sam-" She broke off, her brown eyes filling with tears.

I stared at her. As I absorbed her heartbroken expression, I could feel an epiphany coming on.

This wasn't your usual battle. This wasn't the sort of thing that us girls waited around tense for until our boys came home with a few battle scars or whatever, maybe a few major injuries, but essentially unscathed. This was something that a lot of them may not be coming back from. There wasn't one of us in here that could even be remotely confident that they'd ever see their soulmate again.

Now. This was bad for a number of reasons:

One, If you look at lineage, size, speed, and strength, you'll see that Embry, out of twenty, is the third, maybe fourth best. In everything. The other wolves would figure that out, and that enlarged the already too-big-for-comfort target on his back to twice the previous size.

Two, I might never see him again. I'd never get to ride him like a horse again, never run my fingers through his fur, never stare at him in hurt shock while he chewed me out. Never kiss me again. God, I might die a _virgin. _Get where I'm coming from here? And all that when the last thing I said to him was that I was no longer sure of his love for me. And it implied that I wanted to break up.

Which was, of course, complete crap.

But Embry didn't know that. Which brought me to number three:

We'd had a ginormous fight. The first real fight we'd had in the four years since we'd started dating. That was a big deal. And Embry might be thinking about that at this very moment. When he should be strategizing. And whatching his back. Because at any moment something could blow him up or however it was that these creatures killed.

So if anything happened to Embry, it was probably all my fault.

Embry's POV

We were winning. Despite their advantage in number, they'd grown weak and disoriented from the centuries of hiding Caius had caused them. They were clumsy, weak fighters, and it was even easier to turn them against each other than it was to newborn vampires. The Cullens were a lot of help too, though I didn't want to admit it. They learned more about them with every move they made and shouted the information to us in passing. The shapeshifters didn't seem to be fluent in English. Maybe they weren't even in human language.

But that didn't matter. Because something was going to happen.

Quil was going to die.

I could see him through the fur of the wolf I was currently sinking my teeth into. It was the leader. Paul and Jacob and I had all been working on him all night. Tiring him, confusing, biting him. This would be the last, I think. My jaws had his neck in a chokehold-he tasted worse than anything I'd had in my life-and his struggling was starting to slow, along with his pulse.

Exactly what another wolf was doing to Quil.

I clenched down harder for the quickest moment, trying to kill him once and for all before I tossed the carcas away, leaping over him and into the fray.I pushed myself up and off the ground hard, so that I careened into them headfirst. I stuck my paws out. It wasn't hard for me to knock him over and expose the soft belly underneath. I sank my teeth and claws into them, cringing at the bloodcurling howl it elicted. But I kept going. I dug my paws under the skin, shredding the tissue within and trying very hard not to think about what organs I might be destroying down there.

Quil was thrashing now, aware of what I was doing. I abandoned the thing with his stomach and moved up to his face, chomping down on his jaw and causing it to open, releasing Quil.

Quil pulled weakly away, barley walking. His neck was ravaged, you could see the veins and vessels in it. His fur was a bloody mess. I sqeezed my eyes shut, trying desperately to block out both the image and the thoughts he was thinking . They were not encouraging.

Maybe, if I had listened to Quil's thoughts, things might have turned out differently. I don't know. All I know is that suddenly, the wolf I was on top of had thrashed. Well, swiped, really. Just one, powerful movement in his upper right paw. He pushed up, then dragged down. Up, his claws sinking a good three inches into my shoulder. Dragged down, tearing muscles, veins, organs, breaking bones, all the way down to my hip.

I knew it was happeneing before I felt the pain. I couldn't fathom it, at first. But it came, much sooner than I would have liked. It was like acid, stinging and weakening and sickening me to extremes that I would not have thought possible. I felt bile rise up in my throat and I vomited over the wolf. He hadn't moved after that final stab, and that didn't cause a reaction either. So maybe I'd killed him, too. I couldn't bring myself to care at that moment. All I could think about was the red.

Red hot liquid poured out of me in rivers and spurts and in frighteningly large quantities. I could feel the energy draining from me by the second. The pain, impossibly, heightened, and I was too weak to contain it. I swayed again, this time falling into a pool of my own blood onto the body of the wolf I'd killed. I tried to get up, but I was lost inside myself. I couldn't find my legs.

Slowly, color and shapes blurred and faded, leaving me with nothing but an unbearable, overpowering black.

**Come one. Reveiw and tell me you loved it. You know you loved it.**


	16. Chapter 16

**I KNOW, OKAY? I"M SORRY. YOU DON"T NEED TO TELL ME HOW I'M INCONSISTENT AND SELFISH AND I ABANDONED YOU AT A CLIFFHANGER. I KNOW. But come on, guys. I got grounded, okay? AND before that my computer was overrun by viruses. So it really isn't my fault.**

**Mostly.**

**But lookit! To make it up to you, I'm updating TWICE, AND posting the fourth and FINAL Cat/Embry book! And, if I do say so myself, its the best of all of them.**

**WEEEEEEEEE!!!**

**Now. I know you're mad, but I still love reveiws. **

Cathryn's POV

I didn't shut my eyes for the whole night. I just sat there on the couch, listening to my ipod and occasionally gathering up the energy to talk to some one, distract myself. Only that usually didn't work out too well. Everybody was mad at me. Even Claire. They thought I was being cruel and heartless for not forgiving Embry before. Which I can understand. But I didn't know the fight was that dangerous, in my defense!

But nobody cared.

The first stirrings came at the crack of dawn, just as the pink was beginning to show along the edge of the horizon. We were just hanging around, some of us crying…or trying to cry, anyways. But we'd been doing it for so long that we were running out of body fluids with which to do it. It looked more like leaking or something. Just thin little trickles trailing slowly down our cheeks.

Nessie, who'd been previously resting on the rug at my feet like a little dog, sprang up. Like, literally sprang. Like the jack in the box. It would have been highly humorous under any other circumstances.

"I can smell him." She whispered it to herself, but we all heard. Her voice was breathless and, for the first time ever I think, hoarse.

Of course there was no need for clarifications.

Our reactions were instantatious. One minute I was on the couch, staring blankly into space and trying to think of nothing but the fly buzzing around the Tv. The next I was jammed in the doorframe, struggling like mad to get through alongside Emily, Rachel, and Leslie. Renesmee was already in Jake's arms, probably. Lucky. The others were pushing on us desperately, trying to get out.

After a few seconds of confused wrestling, the lot of us tumbled through the door, head first into the ground of the wood porch. Very graceful, I can promise you. Not that we cared.

Ignoring my skinned knee and my burning forhead, I scrambled up, struggling to pull myself together among all the other flailing bodies. I tripped down the stairs, my legs flying clumsily behind me in protest to being pushed to go faster than they ever had before. I didn't slow, just impatiently pushed myself up again every time I fell. I couldn't even pay attention to where I was running, just that I was running there.

Which was why, when I crashed into the burning wall that was Jacob Black as opposed to the burning wall that was Embry Call, I was drenched in a sort of disoriented heart break.

"Where is he?" I pulled weakly at Renesmee's leg, trying to separate the two of them. Not nice, I know, seeing as I was fairly certain that they were having one heck of a first kiss, but the teeny tiny polite part of me seemed to be taking a holiday. Unfortuanatly, my voice didn't come out nearly as fierce and demanding as I'd meant for it too. It sounded sad and confused. Childlike, almost, like a girl lost from her mother.

Thankfully, I had others backing me up. Rachel and Claire. They fell into step behind me, their faces mirroring the way I felt. Scared. Really, really scared. "Jake!" Rachel kicked his leg. "Werewolf or not, I'm you're big sister and you are so not allowed to ignore me! Where's Paul?"

"And Quil?" Claire added. Her voice sounded like mine. Like a very, very pathetic echo of Rachel's.

Regretfully, Jacob put Nessie down. He swallowed nervously. "Guys…." The look in his eyes was not at all encouraging. "It was a big war."

I felt hot all of a sudden, like the people around me were too close. Much, much too close. Nausia churned in my stomach threateningly. The panicked energy had drained from me as suddenly as it had come, leaving me with nothing to hold on to but the worst feeling I knew.

"Yeah." Rachel agreed, flatly sarcastic. "We've noticed. What happened to them?"

Jacob sighed, and looked helplessly down at Nessie, who leaned into him and put her head on his shoulder. "A lot of us were hurt. Most of us could heal fast enough so that it didn't matter, but Embry and Paul and Quil got it bad. It was too dangerous to move them. Carlise's working on them right now, he thought to bring the nessicary…equipment."

Claire's eyes slowly filled with tears. "Oh, God." She whispered.

"I'm so sorry, Claire." Jacob said sincerely. The look on his face was much too pained for me to doubt the truth of his words.

But I didn't care. I could feel my strength returning. The whole wide world had come down on my shoulders today and, overnight, had gotten a chance to settle there, weakening and tiring me. It was strange, but I'd never been truly broken before. Oh, sure, there was my dad, but that had been so different. When he'd died I'd known he loved me. He'd known I loved him. I knew that he'd finally touched the sky and, wherever he, was, chatting it up with God or singing it up with the angels or asking our ancestors about themselves, I knew he always had one eye on me, and I'd be fine. He'd done what he was supposed to as a father. He'd made me strong and tough and smart, and much as I loved him, much as I wanted him, I no longer needed him.

But it wasn't like that with Embry. He wasn't dead. Whatever was happening to him, it was hurting him. He didn't know how much I loved him. He didn't know that I did at all, I was pretty sure. Neither did I know what he felt for me. I still needed him. We were supposed to brave this crappy world _together._ I was supposed to make up with him from the stupid fight we had, have a big white wedding with all our friends, move to some exotic place for a few centuries till we wanted kids, then raise them _together. _Even the thought of losing all that made me want to scream.

I couldn't just sit around and handle that all by myself. I had to spread it around a little, and I had chosen Jake as my victim.

"You are not." I lied. For once, the lie seemed believable. The venom of my voice was certainly real enough. "If you really gave a crap you'd be back there with them just as hurt as they are from trying to help them, not wrapped up in _her._" I flung a disgusted look at Nessie. "What kind of leader sits back and whatches while the guys they swore they'd have their back fall?"

Jacob opened his mouth furiously. "I-"

"Did a whole lot, I'm sure." I snarled. "You look heartbroken, you really do. And so _scarred. _Come on Jake, I don't even see a mark. Are you a better healer than they are, oh high and mighty alpha? Or were you just too big of a wuss to-"

"Cathryn!" Renasmee looked infuriated. "It wasn't his fault! Don't blame him because you and Embry had a fight!"

I laughed humorlessly. "Oh, me and _Embry _had a fight? And you and Jake have been tip-toeing through the tulips?"

Jacob's face went blank. Totally unreadable as it reached out to me. "I'll take you to him." He said tonelessly, thrwing me onto his shoulder.

Jared and Leah and came up and took Claire and Rachel into their arms, doing the same.

Embry's POV

It was weird, but I could feel it. I mean, I guess I couldn't, really, but I could. At the same time. Does that make sense? No. I didn't think so. But that was what it felt like. I knew Carlisle had given me morphine, it could smell it in me. And I could feel the numbness, a sort of absence of feeling. But despite the drug, I felt the pain. Or rather, not feel it but knew it. I knew I was hurting. That something was very, very wrong.

My torso stung. Not that bad, I know, but that was the way I'd describe it and trust me, yes it was. It was a sickening kind of sting, the kind you feel when you slam for finger in a drawer and it stings there, but also you feel it in your nerves, running through your whole body and making you feel…sick. It wasn't something I'd felt in a while, not since I'd become more than you average human being.

It was while I was pondering this disorienting feeling that I came to notice something else. Something much more disturbing.

I couldn't breathe.

Oh, sure, I could inhale and stuff, but I couldn't do it _right. _I couldn't get enough in my lungs to satisfy, and even that small effort hurt like crap. The air dragged its way uselessly down my throat and into my chest, where it should have relieved me. But it soured and I was left feeling like I hadn't breathed at all, were it not for the intence pain that it had caused me.

The dull ache in the back of your throat when you need oxygen was rapidly increasing until it was searing pain. And then it was spreading, down to my chest and up to my head. I felt the panick set in. The drive for survival overwhelmed me, and suddenly all I wanted, more than anything, was some air. But it was all around me. The problem was me, and I couldn't fix it. I felt dizzy, and my already poor vision swam with spots.

"Embry." Carlise said, his voice tence. "You've got to calm down. You can breathe, if you'll just relax and breath through your nose. I made sure of that."

He was an idiot. He had no idea what he was talking about. When I first woke up I was calm, how come I couldn't breathe then?

"Omigod!" I was momentarily distracted by Cathryn's voice, an octive higher with stress.

"Cathryn," Carlisle's voice was saturated with relief. "Thank goodness. Come over here, please. He isn't cooperating."

Cat was quiet for a second. I could almost hear the wheels turning in her head. "You mean his body isn't?" She asked slowly.

"No, I mean _he_ isn't. He isn't listening." Carlisle said.

"You mean he's awake?!" Cathryn exclaimed.

"Well…yes." Carlisle said hesitantly. Smart of him. Cat's fuse wasn't at its longest right about now.

"So you haven't conked him out yet?!"

"No, I didn't have time to-"

"For the love of God, make time!" Had I been able to see correctly, I'd guess I would have saw Cathryn throwing her hands in the air as she looked to the heavens for help. "Of course he isn't going to listen!"

"There isn't time for that now." Carlise said. For the first time in probably ever, he sounded impatient.

"Why wouldn't there be time?" She demanded.

"One of his lungs collapsed. He'll be able to breathe, but he's got to relax."

"HE HAS A COLLAPSED FREAKING LUNG AND YOU DIDN"T KNOCK HIM OUT?!?!"She no longer sounded pissed. She sounded infuriated. Beyond words, hair pulling, teath grinding, spitting mad.

Suprising, considering my present state, but I was glad I was me and not Carlisle.

"Cathryn," Carlise began.

"Don't even try." I heard Jacob say. "Anything you say can and will be held against you in her court of law."

Huh. That sounded interesting. I wonder what she said too him….

"Cat. Embry." Carlisle said. Tensely.

"Right, my bad."

I felt a small cool hand slip into my larger warm one. "You okay, Baby?" Her voice had pulled a Dr Jeckle-Mr. Hyde. She sounded totally different now. Sweet and loving and even a little emotional.

That, combined with her touch, had an effect on me. Not even me, but my body. As long as she was there, I'd be okay. As long as I could feel her, hear her, things would work out. Because nothing could touch me with her around. Nothing else mattered.

My chest relaxed, the pain lessened until it was a background, insignificant in her presence. I found I could inhale again. Not well, maybe, but it was enough. Relief flooded through me, and without the desperation for air I could think again.

Which was when a very unwelcome thought occurred to me.

"Cat," I choked on my own voice. It didn't even sound like me, so raspy and weak. "You still mad?"

"Are you kidding me?" Cathryn laughed softly. The sound soothed me farther. I felt a flutter of pleasure at her own, so linked with her that I couldn't focus on my own pain, so long as she was happy. It made me drunk, almost lethargic. "I'm furious. What in the world made you think that it was okay for you to do this to me?"

I couldn't answer. I was too sleepy.

"When will it be okay to move him, Doc?" I heard Cathryn asked.

My chest tightened. Not enough to effect my breathing, but enough. Her voice sounded too distant, too far away. She had to stay here. If she left I'd loose myself again, and how would I survive?

Fortunately, these thoughts were distant too. Cloudiness made its way through my head, slowly coating everything until it was gone, and I was unconscious.


	17. Chapter 17

**Oh, yeah. And the fourth fanfic is call High Gravity. Just so you know.**

She wasn't there. I could feel it as soon as I woke up, without even having to open my eyes. It was the first thing I registered, before I realized that I was no longer laying in the wet snow, but on a couch. Before I felt the splint in my side for my broken ribs, before I inhaled and found that now I could breathe just fine. None of that was important to me. What was important was that I felt hollow and depressed and worried to the point of discomfort and that my heart ached with the pull of her, the need to find her.

I groaned and threw an arm over my eyes. I wanted to go back to sleep. Back to calm, peaceful sleep, where there was no splint on you, no soulmates that are never there when you want them and always there when you don't, no irritating sunlight that leaks through windows and glows inside your eyelids, turning them from black to orange.

And most importantly, no roommates.

"And he wakes!" Quil cried.

"You couldn't have done it a few minutes sooner?" Jacob asked me. "Cat just left."

Quil sighed dramatically. "I'll call her." He grumbled.

I listened to his retreating footsteps for a minute before opening my eyes and looking expectantly at Jacob. "What's happened?" I asked.

"A heck of a lot." Jacob responded. "You've been out for four days."

'Four days?" I started. "How'd that happen?"

"I'm actually suprised you weren't out for longer. Carlisle's not exactly used to knocking out a werewolf. Especially not with an imprint with enough bloodlust to rival his own breathing down his neck as he does it."

"So…I'v missed four days."

"Yep. You skipped Christmas. Real annoying, too, because people wanted to come over here this year for some reason, and we all had to stand 'cause you were hogging the couch."

"I'm very sorry." I said, in a voice that made it clear that I wasn't.

"Cat was thrilled. She's got enough itunes gift card to last her till next year."

"I highly doubt that." I told him.

"Mikki and Drew are together now." Jacob said, changing the subject. Probably because he knew that Cathryn's itunes money supply was a bet he'd loose. "She's going to get help. You know, for her little crack issue."

"She and Cat okay now?" I asked.

"Er…" Jacob looked uncomfortable. "It's a work in progress, I think. They're doing better, but they go a lot deeper than just what's happened here."

"Oh." I bit my lip. Knowing Cathryn, whatever had went down before was her fault, and I was not going to enjoy the tenor of Drew's thoughts towards Cathryn.

"And they aren't the only ones." Jacob grinned suddenly. "Nessie and I are together now." He said proudly. "We made up."

I laughed. "Took you two long enough!"

"No, it didn't." "Quil argued, striding back into the room. "Jake and Nessie are every bit as revolting as you and Cat now." He informed me. "Speaking of which, she says she'll be right over."

"Just wait till you and Claire get together." Jacob threatened. But good-naturedly. I had a feeling he'd be like that with everything for a while. "I'm never going to let you here the end of it."

"Nope!" Quil shook his head forcefully. "I've got it all figured out." He tapped the side of his head. "We gonna elope."

I snorted. "Uh, huh. We'll see how that works out."

Quil, in a manner of some one much younger than his twenty-four years, stuck his tongue out at me.

"Hey," I said slowly, an unwelcome thought suddenly occurring to me. "How's my mom?"

Jacob ducked his head. I could tell that this was the question he'd been hoping I wouldn't ask. "She's…good."

"Ha!" Quil exploded into a fit of giggles. "She's better than just _good." _

"She's in love!" Cathryn announced, walking into the room without knocking and making a beeline for my couch. "You've healed, Em, you don't need these any more." She muttered, digging her hands under my splint and pulling at it.

I, at the moment, couldn't care less whether or not my ribs were in pieces. "Whaddya mean?" I demanded.

"Bella told me about how when Charlie found out, he started hanging out with Sue all the time." Cathryn explained. "Remember that? Well, Sophi's glued to side of Billy Black."

"That means nothing." Jacob said quickly, seeing the look on my face.

"It DOES!" Quil yelled. "She's all happy and smiley again and she isn't mad at any body at all-"

"And I've been over there a few times and she was always cooking or gardening or watching sappy movies or some other telling act of lovesickness." Cathryn finished, her fingers pausing next to my skin. "Its kinda cute, actually."

"Cute." Jacob snorted, his expression mirroring the disgust I felt. "Its stupid. My dad's in his fifties and your mom's like forty, for God's sake! They're too old to date."

"They don't seem to think so." Cathryn smirked.

"Well, whatever." Jacob huffed. "It won't last.'

"Yes, it wi-ill!" Quil sang. "I hear wedding bells!"

"What is with you, Quil?" I griped, peering around Cathryn to meet his slaphappy eyes.

"High offa meds." Cathryn informed me, yanking the last of the splint off. "You know, because of what happened to his neck."

I rolled my eyes and pulled Cathryn to me. Just holding her calmed me down about the whole Sophi-Billy issue. After what had happened over the past week, I felt like anything else would be nothing. Especially now that Cathryn wasn't mad at me anymore. As long as she stuck around-which she continued to do, for some unknown reason-everything would turn out okay. Even if I'd gained two brothers in the past week. A half and a step. We were already brothers in one sense, so what did it matter? And Jake and I weren't living with our parents, so that marrage wouldn't really effect us. And even if we hadn't been, weren't we already living together with Quil by choice?

Although, I thought to myself, smiling lazily at Cathryn, that would be changing pretty soon if I had any say in the matter. If things went my way, the second that house of mine was ready to support life, Cathryn would be moving in right along with me.

Epilougue

"And you're sure she's valuable?" The eccentric looking half vampire asked, cocking her head to the side.

"Positive." Derek assured her. Indeed, his base voice was full of conviction. "She's brave, she's tough. She beat the odds against her more than once. She's an imprint. She knows just what to say to make some one tick. The possibilities for her power as a vampire are endless. Who knows, she could even rival Jane."

The smaller half vamp, the first's sister, smiled. "Good. Take her and bring her to us. We'll see if she's as fantastic as you insist.


End file.
